Chapter Twelve: Sweet Taste of Blood
FROM: CDR A. Shepard
TO: CAPT D. Anderson
SUBJECT: Normandy
Captain,
I would like to thank you again for giving me the opportunity to command the Normandy and her crew to find and stop Saren. I won't let you down, sir.
Shepard
FROM: David
TO: Shepard
SUBJECT: re: Normandy
There is no one else I would trust more with her. Make me proud.
David
P.S. You're no longer my XO, Shepard, and I am no longer your commanding officer. You answer directly to Admiral Hackett and the Council now. I believe we can bypass the formalities.
.
Shepard laughed softly to herself and closed off the screen of her omnitool. Alenko glanced back, not use to the sound coming from his commanding officer.
"Ready for your first ride in the Mako, lieutenant?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. Garrus, you're driving."
Garrus looked up in surprise. He had spent most of his time in the shuttle bay, talking either with the requisition officer or with Tali, making his keep by tuning up the beast that was the Mako.
"Are you sure, Shepard?"
The woman gave him a look with a twinkling eye. "You questioning my authority, Vakarian?"
"No, ma'am. I'll go put my armor on."
"You do that."
They were landing on Edolus; the Normandy's scanners had picked up a distress beacon while they were hopping back and forth between systems and scanning planets, looking into Admiral Hackett's little side mission. Also, Shepard was trying to put off looking for Dr. T'Soni; Garrus was trying to find the right moment to ask why.
The team, once Garrus arrived with his rifle and pistol and dressed in a modified version of his C-Sec armor, all climbed into the Mako. Garrus caught the glimpse of her drinking a shot from a flask that she hid in an outer pocket of her armor. When had she started doing that?
Joker pulled the Normandy through the planet's atmosphere and dropped them down a few klicks from the beacon's location.
As Garrus pushed on the acceleration, he glanced over at his crewmates. Alenko was manning the scanner and communications back to Normandy. Shepard had taken the cannon and guns, but her face was unusually stern, even if she had just been laughing at a message on her omnitool.
"So, Shepard," Garrus started, "any reason I'm driving?"
"Because I can't."
Alenko pulled away from the scanner. "Wait, you mean you can't drive the Mako or can't drive anything?"
"Can't drive anything." There was a silence among the three, and Garrus had to lock his mandible so not to laugh. His subharmonics, however, gave away his mirth. "Crashed my family's tractor back on Mindoir all the time. I can fly, and I'm not that good at flying, but I can give Joker a run for his money. I've had my fair share of emergency shuttle evacs and flight simulators."
The look of shock on Alenko's face was enough to make the turian finally laugh.
"That's not an answer I was expecting, commander," Garrus said.
Shepard grinned, and the look in her twinkling eye told him that this was only the beginning of things he didn't know. "What were you expecting?"
"Something along the lines of, 'I like big guns and I cannot lie'."
Shepard almost fell out of her seat laughing, and Alenko had trouble covering his own grin.
"The turian made a human joke! Quick, someone call the Alliance News, this is big."
The crew laughed before hitting a few bumpy dunes and sobered up to put their focus back in the mission at hand. Shepard couldn't wipe the grin off her face, however, and she felt relieved that things weren't going to be awkward between them now. It wasn't good to have a past with fellow soldiers, especially when one was a higher rank than the other, but since they had a preexisting relationship prior to this mission, they didn't have to follow the same regs. Don't shit where you fuck, her N-school drill sergeant had told her.
"Commander, I'm getting a reading on the scanner."
Shepard leaned back in her chair and glanced over the radar. Her face grew hard. "There's something big out there." She faced forward at her cannon again and enlarged the targeting screen. "Garrus, be ready, you might have to floor it out of there, if it's what I think it is."
"What do you think it is?" Alenko asked, but she did not answer. Garrus pulled them closer to the beacon.
The beacon came into sight, as well as the half dozen bodies of marines. Even through the thick walls and the barrier of her mask, Shepard could smell the acid. Shepard did her best to keep her breath steady – in through nose, out through mouth.
The ground shook and the stabilizers of the Mako kicked in.
"Commander, there's something coming!"
Shepard closed her eyes as the screech of the Thresher Maw echoed in the cabin of the Mako. Garrus turning away from the window just long enough to look for the expression on her face. Her helmet did a good job of hiding any emotion she may have, and when she didn't start shooting like he hoped, Garrus spun the Mako away to dodge the spit of acid and took cover in the mountains not too far away. It would keep the maw away long enough to regroup.
"Alenko, keep your eyes on that scanner. Let me know if it gets any closer."
The lieutenant nodded, but watched with a confused expression as Garrus unhooked his harness and climbed into the higher seats to talk to their commander.
"Shepard? Shepard can you hear me?"
Move, Shepard, move! Move, Shepard, move! Move, Shepard, move! Move, Shepard, move! Move, Shep-
She lifted her rifle to her chest with one arm and reached out for Toombs' hand. He took it, and the half dozen of the troop left took off running. She couldn't hear the shuttle, but she could feel the vibrations in the air as the hover-pods thrummed. They were close. The Maw was closer.
Don't stop running, Shepard!
She didn't. Everything was dark. Acid on her face and the blood on her cheeks. Don't stop, Shepard. Don't stop.
Two hands came out and grabbed for her, pulling her weight into the shuttle. She couldn't hear the yelling, but she could feel their words against her hands, and their orders on the tips of her dead fingers. She shook like a leaf in a hurricane, skin chilled from shock. There was a blanket put on top of her, but the cold floor of the shuttle made her shiver more.
So cold. So dark. Cold, dark. Cold. Dark. Cold dark cold dark cold dark cold dark cold-
So young.
Shepard!
She opened her eyes, finally, and felt her chest explode in pain. How long had she been holding her breath? Even though their helmets, Shepard could see the worry in Garrus.
"We're calling an emergency evac. You need to get to Chakwas. We'll get Wrex and take care of the maw."
"No!"
The cabin of the Mako went silent. Garrus waited as she caught her breath and sat up a little straighter in her chair. He could see her waver, but she held fast. Shepard gripped the controls for the cannons.
"You don't have to do this, Shepard." Garrus covers on her hands on the controls, giving her the choice to continue or let him help her. She refuses the help.
"Yes, I do."
Alenko watches the scene in silence, knowing that there is something he is missing.
Garrus moves away, checking one last time to make sure she was alright, before harnessing himself back into the Mako. Slowly, just in case Shepard did change her mind, he eased on the acceleration. Once out from behind the mountains, he could hear her heavy breath over his commlink. Garrus didn't say anything, he would let her do what she must. Close to the beacon, the maw screeched and broke through the rock again.
At any other moment, Garrus would have laughed at her battle cry, at her curses.
Take that, you braindead son of a parasitic grub! Yeah, you're gonna wish you were dead when I'm done blasting holes in you! This is for Akuze!
He maneuvered the Mako away from the spits of acid, watching as the maw moved to try and flank them. He would do this all day if he knew it would help Shepard move on. She yelled some more, waiting for the cannon to recharge, and laid down on the guns so hard that they overheated. Impatience overtook her and she ripped herself from her harness and opened the hatch to slide outside onto the terrain.
"Shepard!"
She was an idiot, Garrus had officially decided on. She had a death wish and he wasn't about to allow it to come true.
Garrus yanked himself from the Mako as well, and Alenko followed simply to make sure they didn't die.
Her next battle cries were so loud, he had to mute his comm.
She unloaded her shotgun on it. Then her rifle, and even with unfocused shots she still able to hit it in the face. And lastly, just as it screeched in pain one last time, she emptied her pistol into one of its eyes and it fell to the ground dead. It was then Garrus turned the comm back on and waited. Alenko walked over to shut down the distress beacon and check the bodies of the men, looking for any signs of identification.
It was when Shepard fell to her knees in the dirt that Garrus walked over and knelt beside her.
"Toni?" he asked softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. She was surrounded by her overheated weapons, looking like a true war veteran. "Come on, let's get back to the ship. Chakwas needs to look at you."
She said nothing and let him help her stand. Alenko met them back at the Mako, hands full of military dog tags. They would inform Kohaku of what became of his me. Right now, Garrus as more worried about Shepard's mental state.
They had first met when she was going through a hard time with her memories, he could only assume how she was feeling right now.
.
Garrus moved through the mess hall and in front of the door that led to Shepard's quarters. The crew was asleep, save for the co-pilot and a few of the second shift controllers. He had seen the effect of the Maw on Shepard earlier, he needed to make sure she was okay.
He remembered the morning after she had spent the night on his couch, sobering up from another night of drinking. It hadn't been a pretty sight.
He pressed the buzzer on the door, not wanting to draw attention to himself by knocking. There was no answer and when he passed his hand over the screen to try and hack the lock of the door, it opened without any pause. It hadn't been locked?
Once the door was open, Garrus wasn't all too surprised at the scene before him.
The room smelled horribly of alcohol.
Shepard was pacing her quarters, body bare of any clothing except for her undergarments. Her hands would switch places every few steps; sometimes rubbing around her arms, over the scars left behind by the Akuze accident, or holding her head, or rubbing the scar across her nose. He watched her for a few moments before calling out her name.
She didn't reply, and he had to remind himself that she had probably turned off her in-ears. She had done that last time, as well.
Slowly, so not to surprise her, Garrus came into her line of view and reached out for her. While her eyes were open, they weren't focused in on him. The cybernetics flashed white before her eyes were no longer glazed over. With a quick breath, she pulled up her omnitool and flicked her implants back on.
"I can hear them," she said softly, and Garrus stroked his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, and took her hands in his. "They're not here, but I can hear them. I had to turn off my in-ears, trying to see if it was real or just in my head. Their screams. Garrus, I -"
He shushed her and held her to his body. He hadn't changed out of his arm, but he knew the touch would help even if just a little.
She stumbled away from him and to the bed, picking up an empty bottle. Shepard stared at it, trying to figure out where the alcohol had gone before she dropped it back down beside three other empty bottles.
Garrus walked over and sat beside her, reaching up to run his fingers over the back of her neck like she did to him a few times before. Her body visibly relaxed, head tilted forward and eyes closed in peacefulness.
"You're safe, Shepard," he said, quietly. She nodded. His talons stroked down her neck to her back, across some of the large scaring. He paused near her waist, where the three bullet holes that had gone in through her front returned through her back. Garrus touched them, felt them, made himself remember that she was a soldier and war was her life. "How do you feel?"
"Sleepy," she answered almost immediately, head still ducked down, but she was watching him through her peripherals.
"Get some sleep, then. We're a few hours out from Therum."
Shepard finally looked up at him, and Garrus felt his heart drop in his chest. He had never seen such a strong person so fragile. It was as if he could take her in his hands and at the slightest bump, she would shatter into dust.
"Stay with me? Just until I fall asleep."
He nodded, and together they found the releases of his armor so that they could lay comfortably in her smaller bed. She had plenty of pillows to help him prop up on, to keep from being uncomfortable with his thick cowl, and Shepard pressed again his side, her head propped on his shoulder and the soft hide of his inner arm.
Garrus stayed long after she had fallen asleep.