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Loyalty and Limerence

Part 1

Chapter 12

The SSV Normandy

The frustration running rampant aboard the Normandy must have been infectious because everyone seemed as tightly wound as a spring in the days following Feros. Even though Shepard had received the Cipher, not much seemed to have come from the ordeal. They'd all hoped that it would suddenly make his visions understandable instead of just a collection of horrific yet disconnected images. Instead, it seemingly made them worse. They'd all sat around the com room as they'd watched Liara meld with the Commander in hopes of making sense of the visions with the new Cipher, but for nothing.

Now they were back where they had been, drifting with no new leads. In the meanwhile, they attended to some smaller missions here and there as they moved from system to system in hopes that they would encounter some sort of clue.

Even though he was frustrated over the lack of progress on their search for Saren, Garrus did genuinely enjoy the other ground missions when he was taken along. Shepard usually took a smaller team with him for these sorts of things, and it was always an honor to be chosen.

Which was how he found himself packed into the Mako with Shepard, Tali, and Wrex as they assaulted a series of geth hideouts in the Skyllian Verge. The road, such as it was, was less than ideal, causing them to be tossed about roughly as Shepard navigated his way up toward the nearest base.

"Ugh, I'm going to be sick…" Tali muttered quietly from her seat beside him, her head sagging as she tried to steady herself.

"Well, I guess it's lucky for the rest of us, then, that you can't remove your helmet here." Garrus couldn't help the amused reply that burst from him, feeling slightly bad for poking fun at the motion sick quarian. She looked up to shoot him an unamused glare, causing Wrex to laugh. "I'm just saying, besides making the rest of this mission rather uncomfortable, it would be a pain to clean up, which would probably fall on me."

"I've never known a turian to shirk a duty." Wrex shot back at him, "I thought you all like some good, hard work. Builds 'character'." He sneered in his usual way when mentioning his love for turians.

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not exactly the best turian." Garrus deadpanned at the krogan, causing him to laugh heartily.

"Perhaps not! Probably for the best."

"Can you two please shut up? I'm getting pretty good with this shotgun." Tali growled as she glared down at her boots. From up front, Shepard laughed before playing peacemaker, as he always did.

When he wasn't on missions, Garrus was occasionally starting to find work a little harder to focus on.

"Garrus, what do you think about this? Can you give me a hand with it?" His head snapped up and he looked over at Jane as she walked toward him with a weapon mod in her hands. Pleased that she had come to ask his opinion, he happily put his own work down at the welcome distraction. From across the cargo bay, he heard a low chuckle and he looked up for a moment to see Wrex watching as he leaned against the wall. Ignoring him, Garrus followed Jane back to the weapons station.

They worked together, quietly chatting and laughing for about an hour before Jane suddenly looked down at her omni-tool and cursed.

"What's wrong?" Garrus asked as she hurriedly started putting her tools away.

"I completely forgot that I have a meeting with the Commander to go over the requisition for our next resupply. Thanks for the help, that damn mod has been pissing me off all day. I'll see you at dinner." She turned and hurried to the elevator and he felt the sting of disappointment at her departure. As she pushed the button to summon the lift, he called out to her.

"Tomorrow morning, are you up for a spar? It's been a few days, could definitely use it." Jane turned to look at him and smiled as the door opened.

"Sure thing, it's a date!" She stepped inside, pushed the button, and the door closed. Garrus stood there for a moment, smiling at the warmth he felt at the prospect of their upcoming match. His thoughts were interrupted by the chuckling of the krogan not far off.

"Care to share what's so amusing?" Garrus sighed, turning back to the mod on the desk.

"You really have it bad, don't you?" Raising a brow plate at him, Garrus looked back up at Wrex in confusion.

"Have what bad?"

"Ha! You sure are thick, even for a turian. Well, at least you know how to pick 'em." Wrex snorted, a self satisfied smirk playing across his lips.

"What are you even talking about?" Wrex didn't answer, just tipped his head back with a bark of laughter. Rolling his eyes, Garrus ignored the krogan, muttering about eccentric old men under his breath as he put the weapon mod back in its box and returned to the Mako.

"I heard that!" Wrex called good naturedly, but Garrus ignored him, instead trying to focus back on his work. But every time the elevator dinged and the door opened, his eyes snapped up to see who was getting off the lift, only to be disappointed when he didn't see red hair.

A few weeks after Feros, Shepard called them into the com room for a meeting suddenly, and as they filed in, Garrus felt a glimmer of hope that their wait was over.

"I received a call from the Council, I think we finally have a new lead." Shepard started, "We've set a course for Sentry Omega, to the Hoc System. The Council contacted me about an STG infiltration team gathering information about Saren on a planet called Virmire. They went silent after sending a garbled message on the line reserved for mission critical communications. We're going to see if we can figure out what happened to them. It might lead to a discovery about Saren's activities."

They continued to discuss the information Shepard had received and went over what they knew of Virmire's terrain and ecosystem. But Garrus soon realized that was really all they knew going into this. It wasn't much to go on, and it left him feeling unsettled. They were going in blind.

He could see similar thoughts crossing the faces of those around him, but as they all looked to Shepard, Garrus knew that the Commander was the best man to see them through it. Just as the people arranged around him were the best teammates he could hope for, each with their particular skill set that they excelled at.

Ashley; her courage and gun skills were superb. Kaidan; his biotic and tech skills made him invaluable, but so did his steadfastness, always ready for what came. Wrex; like a walking tank, only a fool with a death wish could stand in the way of his biotics and shotgun, but his vast wealth of experience also made him wise. Liara; her biotics made her a very formidable opponent, but she was also an almost inexhaustible well of knowledge. Tali; she was the very best at everything technical, and she was becoming very lethal with her shotgun after all her practice on Geth, Mercs and Rachni. And…

She stood looking down at the corpse of the odd, green asari, her chest and shoulders heaving as she worked to regain her breath. Wisps and strands of glistening red hair dangled in her face, and after a moment, she lifted a hand to brush them away. Her deep green eyes glinted like steel as they examined the body before her. Her mouth was slightly parted as her breathing started to return to normal, and he had to rip his eyes away from the crimson stain of her own blood making her lips redder than usual. She turned slightly, glancing at him, and as their eyes met, there was a ghost of a smile on those lips. She turned back to the dead clone, and bent down to retrieve her knife, wiping it off with slow, careful movements before sheathing it back on her belt with deadly grace.

Shaking himself, he tried to focus back in on the conversation at hand, but couldn't stop himself from glancing at the woman sitting in the chair next to him. Of all those on the team, Jane was the one he trusted most at his six. She was an even better shot than he, sniping down enemies long before they knew she was there. She was deadly at any range, as she had demonstrated time and time again in close quarters combat. He had never seen anyone quite like her, and even in her combat armor she moved with such fluidity that she still managed to seem graceful and bea-

He jerked his thoughts back to the meeting at hand, trying to not to miss anything important. Shepard always sent them a copy of the debrief overview to their extranet accounts, so he could review it later to make sure he hadn't missed anything, but still. It wasn't professional to get lost in your own musings to the extent that he had been lately.

It had become somewhat of a ritual to hold a little game session once a week, though it generally varied in attendance from week to week, depending on what was being played. Poker seemed to be most popular with the humans of the crew, but Garrus had yet to fully grasp the rules to that one. Today, Liara was attempting to teach a few of them to play an asari card game, but with mixed results. Tali and Wrex had elected not to play, instead chatting over some magazine about shotgun mods Tali had borrowed from the older krogan.

Kaidan and Ashley were clutching their cards, whispering confusedly with their heads together. Liara was laughing as she reiterated some rule for Jane, who looked only mildly less confused than the other two humans. It was good to see Liara relaxing amongst the Normandy crew as she seemed to be doing more often these days. She appeared to have little experience socializing with non asari, and so this was all probably a little new to her. Anyone with eyes, except Shepard himself, could see her fixation and fascination with the Commander from a mile off, so perhaps that was helping her pick up on human social norms. But seeing her also settle into friendships with the crew members was a good sign, and as Jane quipped a little joke at her own expense, Garrus was happy to see the two women laugh together.

He knew that his translator altered a lot, if not all, of what he heard from members of other races, but laughing seemed to be something shared across nearly all species. Each race's laugh sounded different, but the concept seemed to be mostly the same. Human laughs, much like they themselves, varied dramatically from person to person, more so than with any other race. Garrus liked Jane's laugh, and more and more it made him want to smile. It was low and genuine, and just rare enough that it made him feel warm when he heard it.

As he glanced at her, his eyes slid down to the two metal tags dangling from a chain around her neck. He wasn't sure why the Alliance called them 'dog tags', but they had a few odd names for things, so he wasn't surprised. But he was curious about why they wore them. Sure, he understood the concept, but it seemed so outrageously out of date in a world of DNA and wearable personal electronics like omni-tools. Turians hadn't worn identifying military tags for hundreds of years, unless you counted their clan markings, so it seemed odd that the humans held steadfast to such an outdated tradition.

Usually, Jane wore hers under her shirt where you couldn't see it, as it seemed most Alliance soldiers did. But occasionally, such as tonight, she wore them above her shirt for whatever reason, and Garrus found his eyes drawn to them time and time again. She probably didn't even realize she was doing it, but she kept picking one or both of them up and twiddling them between her five fingers while she looked at her cards or chatted with Liara. They clattered together softly as she dropped them back down onto her chest, returning to their usual position dangling from the thin chain. His eyes traced the line of the chain up around her neck, which seemed so exposed and lithe, particularly without her armor on.

"Garrus?" The sound of Jane's voice brought him back to the present as his eyes snapped up to meet her bemused and slightly concerned ones. "You okay? Liara has been trying to get your attention."

"Huh? Oh. What's up, Liara?" Garrus cleared his throat in embarrassment, berating himself for letting his thoughts drift so far away from the game at hand.

"It's your turn." Liara was staring at him intently, and for a moment he felt as though he were a particularly interesting lab experiment. She seemed to be examining a confusing puzzle.

"Ah. Right." Garrus sat up, clearing his throat again, "So, remind me, what do I do when it's my turn?" He asked, a bit chagrined that he'd already forgotten the rules. This seemed to deepen her confusion for a moment before her eyes widened as if to say 'ah ha!'. Her eyebrows shot up as she quickly glanced at Jane, who'd gone back to examining her own cards, before returning to him. Suddenly, a small knowing smile settled on Liara's lips, her eyes flicking back to Jane once more before she focused on him.

She began to explain the actions he could take on his turn, and Garrus was left mildly amused by her behavior. He supposed for all her gains in social interactions, she was still a tad bit awkward sometimes. He could relate, he had a habit of… how had Ridgefield used to put it? Putting his hand in his mouth? No, putting his foot in his mouth.

As their attempt at playing Liara's card game came to an end, they hit their bunks for the night. As everyone silently got ready for bed, Garrus could see any frivolity left over from the game flee as a more somber, pre-mission contemplation seemed to grip the members of the ground team. Except, Wrex, he supposed. He seemed as unflappable as always. Tomorrow they would be arriving at Virmire, and they had almost no idea what to expect. It was hard to mentally prepare for a mission you had so little information about. As he lay in his bunk, he glanced around at the shifting, sleeping, and otherwise quiet bodies laying in the bunks around him. He wondered if any of the others had the same ominous, uncomfortable, tightening in their chests.

In the days that would follow, he would come to realize that there's nothing one can do to prepare for missions such as Virmire.