1.
Two painful weeks later…
The first in a long list of "worst things" Garrus had done was start blaming other people. It wasn't right—it didn't make sense, dammit—but he was doing it all the same. Tali got spared any wrath because Garrus knew, just from looking at her on the Normandy—when Shepard was being led away in cuffs—he knew she was holding her own head under the water. Miranda, Jacob, and everything else remotely Cerberus? They were easy targets: they'd disappeared, under Shepard's orders, and so there was no way in hell they could fight back. Just made it hollow, though, not getting any pushback. The same principle meant Thane, Mordin, Samara—everyone else whose boots had hit the ground with Shepard over the past year—only got a few days of loathing before hating them started using up more energy than it generated. He could save a bit of hate for Joker, Hackett, hell even Anderson—he knew where they were and they didn't interact with him at all, outside a few texts. There was enough distance there to prevent any guilt from absorbing the blame he was trying to throw around…but that distance also meant it'd dissipate too, after a while.
That left—as was usually the case—two candidates: himself…and his family. Or, what was left of it: a father that couldn't go two minutes without criticizing his son, and a sister that just plain wanted nothing to do with him, not after Mom passed. He had orders not to blame one of those candidates—orders he was going to try his best to follow, even if it'd been doomed from the start. The other candidate, though? His family? There wasn't much hope: he was being recalled to Palaven, and the planet would need to grow three sizes during transit to prevent the Vakarians from reuniting.
One email—the one with his own name in that all important section—got sent to drafts, just like all the others. The second email simply said: I don't have a choice. Translation: of course I'm coming home, but I wouldn't if I thought I could avoid a trial.
Hierarchy authorities pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, and debriefed Garrus once he hit planet-side, and probably those people ended up being briefed and debriefed right after. Word had got out almost immediately that Garrus had dealings with Cerberus. Being a renegade mercenary in the Terminus System? Forgivable, if lamentable. Willingly shacking up with a xenophobic terrorist organization? And so soon after Saren dragged the whole species under the mud? You'd better have a good explanation for that.
"Watch the vids," Garrus had said. "They're educational. Something about human colonies disappearing."
"But not turian colonies, correct?" the turian across from him—decked out in full armour for all the reasons you'd expect—said.
"If that distinction mattered to me, I'd never have gone to C-SEC. And for the record? I've said about fifteen times now that I didn't work for Cerberus—I worked for Shepard. And that, is a distinction I take seriously. As should everybody else."
Other things were said, but Garrus hardly cared.
He'd gone through his debrief more or less in a fugue state and didn't snap out of it until Palaven's unforgiving sun hit his plates, for the first time in years. Wasn't the sun that did that to him—it was the realization that another Vakarian had to be around, and he'd have to pay attention to what he said from then-on…if for no other reason than to make it perfectly clear where his mind was at, and how little it'd take to get him at your throat if you weren't careful.
He expected Dad. What he saw, instead, was Solana. They stared at each other for way too damn long.
"I expected Dad," Garrus said eventually. Solana already had her arms crossed; now he could see her talon's digging into the fabric of her clothes.
"Yeah—he said he's busy. Funny how us Vakarians get, huh?"
Garrus looked around the plaza. It was blazing hot and light was ricocheting off every metal spire, sphere, statute that surrounded the place. Aliens got disoriented almost immediately; for turians, you had to have something on your mind for it to get like that. And Garrus had plenty on his mind—enough that the possibility of other people hearing a family spat didn't much bother him, at this point.
"We can do this here," he said. "Get it out before we're trapped in a car. I'm free to share pretty much everything with you now, you know—I don't need a trusty book of euphemisms because we're on an unsecure channel."
"I told Dad you'd be like this when you got here. I said: the first thing out of Garrus's mouth will be a big 'I told you so.' Well, you didn't, Garrus. You didn't tell us anything." She scoffed. "Euphemisms? We had—absolutely—no idea what you were up to. No 'euphemisms', no codes no, no hints. We thought you'd quit C-SEC and then gotten yourself fired from a defense contractor, for Spirits knew what reason."
"And now you know the truth," Garrus said. "I hope it's everything you secretly wanted me to be doing with my life, because this'll be the only time I talk about it."
Solana scoffed again. "You…you've been gone way too long to say something like that. 'Secretly', Garrus you've got no idea what…" Solana shook her head, scoffed again, looked off to the side—away from Garrus. "Dad's busy, all right? So it's just me, here."
"I can read the subtext," Garrus said. "If his schedule was open, you'd've swapped places."
"I would've come regardless. Or I would've been there when you got home."
"So, what? What's with the tone? What's with looking like you're gonna start stripping plates off my back before I even open my mouth?"
A third scoff. "Oh, gee, couldn't have been you—couldn't have been the way you started this. 'I was expecting Dad'—great to see you too, Garrus."
"I'm really enjoying this." People were definitely looking now, Garrus could tell; but it wasn't a full scene yet. "This is really my favorite part of coming back here."
"Name the last two times you've visited and I'll believe you."
"So we're back where we started then, right? Because there secret's out: I was a stone's throw away from a black hole and fighting things that'd scar a healthy person for life. Sorry, little Ms. Perfect, that I got wrapped up choosing between Mom and the galaxy."
"You could've said something! You could've said anything! You could've said, hey, family—hey Mom—those rumours you heard about Commander Shepard? They're true and I can't get into any specifics but hey, great idea! I'll ask someone who routinely does the impossible to help set up a secure vidcam so I can tell my mother where those anonymous donations to the salarian clinic are coming from!"
There was a police officer right next to them now. "If you two don't leave," he said, "I'll book you for disturbing the peace. This is a public place, not a psychologist's couch."
But neither Garrus nor, evidentially, Solana had any follow ups. They probably would've just stood there, oscillating between glowering at each other and looking hurt, until the Reapers finally put everyone out of their misery.
"C'mon," Solana said eventually. "Car's this way."
Garrus didn't say anything. He grabbed his bags, started following his sister, and looked up at the sky.
Not destroying myself, right Shepard? I'm just picking at the bones of my family, because it's always been easy that way.
And that was enough of that. If it'd gotten to that point—if he'd started getting mad at Shepard of all people—then there'd be no point in trying to beat the Hierarchy over its inflated head with the Reaper threat while he was here.
There'd be no point in anything, really, except maybe walking into traffic with his eyes closed.
2.
In the vids, a car ride back home would be where two people in the middle of a fight had a go at making amends. One of them would lean over and say, this wasn't about you—not really. Things started off bad because I had a million worries on my mind, and you? You just so happened to be next door when all the screaming started. A little artistic flourish, just to take the seriousness out of the situation. Just to show the other person that the next time words were exchanged, everyone had enough self awareness to keep it civil.
Then the other person? They'd say something like: all's not forgiven, but with the state of the world right now? A little stress is understandable. Been under some myself, matter of fact. Things'll go a lot smoother if we leave our baggage at the door, because you're right: this isn't about me. It isn't about you, either. It's about something bigger that the screenwriter, being a clever bastard, is only hinting at…
…or something. The metaphor was breaking down already. Point was, stuff like that happened in the vids all the time. But if it happened in real life, it never involved turians—or, at least, not turians with the last name "Vakarian."
The car ride back home was completely silent, save for the fact that Garrus could hear Solana breathing—and he was pretty sure she could hear him doing that too. Sound got amplified in situations like this: that was about the only thing from the vids that was true to reality.
Dad's apartment complex didn't look any different than the other complexes around him: square, flat, functional. The only differences were size and density: the people more than halfway up the hierarchy had a bit more room to stretch their legs, but it wasn't anything like on Earth or Thessia. Not that Garrus would've known what either of those planets looked like. He never got a chance to see Earth, and with Liara now running around as the Shadow Broker, he didn't have much reason to see Thessia, either.
No offense, Liara, but there was a bit more urgency to see Earth.
Solana wasn't coming in; she had other places to be. Garrus didn't ask and Solana likely wouldn't've told him if he had; he just walked into the apartment, passed the security checks, opened the door to his father's habitation area, and set down his bags. So, the place to himself? Was that it? Just what he needed, after days of space travel and a full two weeks of ignoring everyone—isolation. Spirits, hard to tell if he was even joking at this point. Melodramatic? Sure. But sarcastic?
Hell who cared if people thought he was being melodramatic—who cared if he thought he was being that way. There was a very real chance the world would end before he saw Shepard again, and if anyone tried to argue differently he had enough horror stories about what was coming to shut them up. You go ahead and think of the one person you knew who made the world seem sensible, and then imagine them getting skewered by a husk and having their flesh turn bluer than a corpse. You imagine your last memories of that person being their planet under siege, by kilometer-long weapons of mass destruction, knowing that under the lasers and bombs was a destroyed building entombing their broken body. You go and live with the fact that, on the day you were supposed to make up for missing their birthday, you made a spectacle of their arrest and after all that they still told you not to hurt yourself over it—because we have other things to worry about, sure, but you tried making a big gesture and failed and all they were thinking about was you, you and your attempts at pulling your weight in this relationship.
Go ahead, imagine all that and then try claiming he was being melodramatic.
Garrus sighed, shook his head. "Nobody's saying that," he told the floor. "You'd know that if you bothered responding to your damn emails. What've you done: reached out to Tali? Tried to make sure she was all right? Once? How the hell d'you know what people are saying."
"Son?"
Garrus spun around. Lost in his own head, he hadn't heard footsteps. But, standing just a few feet away—a datapad in one hand and a bowl of something steaming in the other—was his father, Castis.
They stared at each other, for a good, long while.
"Dad," Garrus said eventually. "Solana told me…she said you were busy."
"I said I'd be a bit busy," Castis said. "I asked her to be on standby. When I went to leave, the car was gone."
Garrus looked back towards the door, like Solana would come bursting in at any second. "Got a bit different of an impression from her. She made it seem like you weren't coming."
"She said that explicitly?"
"No." No smartass remark; didn't see the point.
His father just stared.
"Putting words in other people's mouths is a nasty habit to have, Garrus."
"I just got finished with one fight, dad—if I really wanted another I'd go out and get drunk off my ass." Garrus bent down to pick up his bags. "I won't be staying long—don't worry."
"Come and sit for a bit." His dad raised the bowl in his hand like an offering tray. "I made just enough to share."
"I'm not hungry."
"So what are your plans? Now that you're here, what's next?"
Garrus looked up from his bags, regarded his father. It sounded like a genuine question, but that was just C-SEC training. All that was, was a question designed to get an interrogation suspect to think about the long-term. Once you got someone into that kind of mindset, it got real hard for them to ignore just how big of a mistake they made, and how much worse it'd get if they didn't switch gears.
And damn it all, it was working on Garrus, too. He dropped the bags and walked towards his father.
"You're hungry, then?" he said.
"I just need a drink," Garrus said. He walked to the fridge and, without much in the way of conscious thought, poured himself a glass of some juice. Could've gone for something stronger but, that wouldn't've gone over well—not in this building.
No, Garrus was spending most of his mental energy trying to come up with a plan—something to keep his ass off the vacant chair across from his dad. Not a thing came to mind. The fact was, everybody had planned on using the next few months to get their personal lives in order, just so there weren't any repeats of Shepard playing team psychologist in the middle of a Collector attack. That and everybody knew how dark things were about to get: best enjoy the little bit of time we had left, in case this really was it. So much for that idea: Hackett had scuttled any hope of a holiday from all the horrors with one secret transmission, sent just a few days after they'd left Horizon.
Spirits, why couldn't he just be mad at Hackett?
His father had sat down too. He was eating whatever was in his bowl and staring at his datapad, just occasionally looking over the edge at Garrus. If this was an interrogation, it was a lousy one…not like he'd let the Cerberus thing go, that wasn't his style, so where were the questions? The pressure? The point-by-point rebuttals that always came too quickly, so Garrus never got a chance to really defend himself?
Sure, it was Garrus's style to assume something like this—that his father was just waiting to tear open everything he said—but that didn't mean it wasn't true.
Then his father coughed and put down his datapad, and Garrus thought: here we go.
"Venari's dead," his father said.
Garrus blinked. "What? Executor Pallin—you're saying he's dead? When'd you hear this?"
"A few days ago. I haven't heard all the details, but…it sounds like he resisted arrest. The investigating officer fatally wounded him in some sort of scuffle."
"Resisting arrest?" Garrus pushed away his still-full glass of juice. "I can't see Pallin ever being investigated, let alone resisting. That's not his style."
"That's what I thought, too. Unfortunately, I don't have as much clout in C-SEC as I thought: nobody will take up my requests for more information."
"Not enough clout, or people just don't want you to know." Garrus leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Face it, dad: if there's a cover-up, the last person anyone in on it would want that info leaked to, is you."
"That's a hasty conclusion, Garrus."
"Is it?" Garrus pushed himself back in his chair. "Just because you followed the book doesn't mean other people did. And unlike me, those other people never had society's best interests at heart."
"Do you think Pallin was effective in his job?"
Garrus blinked again. "I don't get the relevance."
"You complained about him and his rules all the time. Is that because you thought he made C-SEC the best it could be?"
Garrus could see where this was ending up. "You'd be surprised, Dad, how many times a person like Pallin gets taken out just for being—"
"If he wasn't effective, why would he be targeted?"
"Spirits."
"It's an honest question, Garrus."
"I just finished getting grilled by Spaceport Security—I'm really not in the mood for round two."
Castis leaned forward. "I'm 'grilling' you because I'm taking you seriously."
"If scoffing and calling me a moron lets us skip the back-and-forths, then I'll take that any day of the week."
Castis said nothing; Garrus also said nothing. The only movement at that table was the corner of the napkin under his dad's bowl, flicking upwards from the breeze that leaked in through an open window.
Then, Castis rested his chin on his hands. "Do you mean that, Garrus? You'd rather…mmm, 'throw in the towel' than be taken seriously? A lifetime of scoffing is worth more than someone taking you at your word?"
Garrus shook his head. "I repeat: I don't get the relevance."
"All I want to know, Garrus, is what happened to make you drop everything and work with Cerberus."
"Saren already used a bunch of geth," Garrus said. "If I was going off the deep end the least I could do is be original. Nobody's bothered with an army of idiot terrorists before so, here we are."
"Don't joke like that. When you break a rule, you have a reason. What was Cerberus fighting that nobody else wanted to touch?"
"Bureaucrats and census takers. We made a perfect team."
His father, angry enough now that it showed on his face, leaned back in his chair. "Let me rephrase: Jane Shepard has a well-deserved reputation for never crossing the line. So what made her decide to work with Cerberus, and what convinced you that there was a good enough reason to follow her?"
Garrus's anger was pretty damn visible now, too. "I'd try rephrasing that question again if I was you. And maybe work on your hospitality skills now that you've gone and quit. This right here might just be part of the reason why I never come home."
And, speaking of lines…one had been crossed. That'd deserve another email—more than one, probably—but…this is what he did. And if he thought too much about how none of this made sense—how he was supposed to be past behaviour like this—then he'd really be screwed, because an outside observer might start thinking that Shepard had wasted her time with him, that if he saw Sidonis or Dr. Heart or even Harkin? A piece of garbage so small his own mother would forget to send in an obituary? They'd all have a high chance of getting a bullet in the head, because Garrus hadn't changed—he'd just tried to look better in front of his girlfriend so he didn't feel so alone anymore…
…and that wasn't a thought he could handle right now.
But all his father did was sigh.
"All right. I concede."
Garrus's mandible twitched. "Concede what?"
"This argument. Believe it or not, Garrus, but I wasn't intending this to be an interrogation."
"Just your default mode of conversation, right?"
"With you and Solana? Yes, yes it very much is. Because I've had an easier time working confessions out of hardened serial killers." His dad held up his hands. "You come by that honestly. In more ways than one."
Garrus blinked, stared at his dad, and…just shook his head. He could tell, the fight wasn't gone—there was still that voice in the back of his skull, ready to jump out at any second and for any reason. At least things felt on the level, though. At least he didn't feel the weight of the Hierarchy pushing down on his chest.
"If I could take the edge off of what I said, I would have," Garrus said.
"That edge says something, at the very least. I was trying to bring it a bit more to the surface. Evidently, the opposite happened."
"Look." Garrus stood up. Too long sitting—he needed to stretch his legs more. "The fact is, both you and Solana caught me at a bad time. And I've spent two and half years learning how to skim over important details because everybody's allergic to the truth." He paced to the other side of the table—about the same distance away from his father, but with less furniture constricting his movements.
He said, "What I'm about to say isn't an insult or a…a targeted attack—something bubbling to the surface from earlier. But the fact of the matter is, people with your political clout and your connections? Those're the people that've pissed me off the most—the people who've plugged their ears the hardest and come up with the most creative ways to call good people crazy. I've met maybe two people who bucked the trend and one of them just…"
And Garrus trailed off, looked at the floor, told himself not to look at his dad until the other turian spoke first. Why? Who the hell knew anymore. If this was a cry for help then not even Garrus was picking up on it.
Castis pushed away from the table and moved closer to Garrus. "There won't be many people talking about Pallin's death," he said, "because a different story is holding the news cycle hostage."
"I can't imagine why," Garrus said.
"But Pallin's death is still getting more traction than a comment by Admiral Steven Hackett, where he effectively said the order to commence an Alliance operation in batarian space had come from him—outside proper command protocols—and, so, if anyone deserved to be hauled in front of a tribunal, his name should be included too."
Garrus looked up, just slightly. "He said that, huh?"
Castis nodded. "So that's who you're talking about, am I correct? Admiral Hackett sent Shepard into the Bahak System, something catastrophic happened, and that…that is weighing heavily on you."
Well…it sounded better than saying a botched birthday party had ruined his mood. Garrus sighed.
"It's complicated. I'm not expecting you to understand." Garrus assumed a defensive posture. "I didn't go on that mission—I couldn't—but I know Shepard. The whole galaxy's been told what I dropped just to work with her again—and for once, the whole galaxy's right. So when I say that if there was any other way—any way at all—for that to end differently, I mean it. I'm more sure of that than whether I'm awake right now."
And, Spirits, wouldn't it've been a blessing if he wasn't?
He watched his dad, expecting…he didn't know what. Gut and experience said a lecture, but Dad's body posture? It said something else.
Eventually, Castis said, "I already told you: Shepard has a reputation for never crossing a line. No, more than that: I said she had a well-deserved reputation. I rarely butted heads with Pallin more than when discussing your Commander: he insisted that she was doomed to repeat other Spectre's mistakes…I argued otherwise." Castis briefly looked out the window. "I suppose I won't get the chance to settle that debate, but if Pallin were alive, I'd be telling him what I told you: there's likely a reason why Shepard did what she did. You've confirmed that, with the caveat that you don't trust me enough to reveal the reason."
"It sounds bad," Garrus said, "but it isn't you. It's everyone else that's been in your position."
"We'll get to that later. My main concern right now is…the amount of pressure you're under, and how much what's happening to your Commander is affecting you. And what I want you to know—what I should have made clear from the beginning—is that…I am here for you, Garrus. If and when you want to talk. On your own time, with no added pressure." His dad looked him right in the eyes. "I told you when you were…hmph, the hell with euphemism—when you were clearly fighting for your life on what I can only assume was some Terminus cesspool, I told you we had a lot to sort out. And we do. But we'll do it in its own time, the pace set by you, because you're not a convict—you're my son."
There was…a warmth, there, that Garrus hadn't seen in…spirits, in just about forever. Decades in C-SEC and you learned to cover something like that up pretty quickly—and Dad had definitely done that—but…it was there, and it was noticed, and Garrus…Garrus didn't have a clue how to process that.
"Thanks, Dad," Garrus said. He needed to say more—he couldn't just leave it at that. "I'm sorry I never…I'm sorry I dropped out of contact. And never gave a clear picture of what was going on. Mmm, not really doing that now, being honest, so…add that to the apology pile too."
"We understand," Castis said.
"We?" Garrus looked towards the door, pointed at it with his thumb talon. "I'd check with Solana, before you make any statements on her behalf."
"I'm using my parental prerogative." Castis shook his head. "Your sister hasn't given herself a day's rest since the news broke about you."
Up went Garrus's brow. "About me?"
"Where you were…why you couldn't come home." Castis crossed his arms. "She didn't give you much leeway and she knows that. Hearing about the Collectors, the disappeared colonies, everything…well, I think you'd recognize perfectly well how little forgiveness she's willing to give herself."
"Spirits." Yeah…yeah he'd know a thing or two about that.
"You two are too similar—that's the problem." Castis paused, tilted his head, briefly looked down at the floor. "I suppose that makes three…in some areas, anyways."
"Just a perfect, happy family," Garrus said. He felt his omni-tool start to buzz, and then he heard it start to beep.
"There's no such thing, and probably never will be." Castis pointed at Garrus's omni-tool. "You should answer that."
No such thing and probably never will be, huh? Guess Garrus came by his cynicism honestly too. He held up his arm. "Depends on who's calling."
"It shouldn't."
"The Hierarchy gave you special algorithms that filter the nasty calls for you. The rest of society isn't so lucky." Garrus held up his wrist, and saw the caller ID blink in bright orange lights.
TALI'ZORAH NAR RAYYA VAS NEEMA/NORMANDY/NEEMANDY(?)
"Mmm," Garrus said, "I'm definitely gonna have to take this."
His dad was already sitting down. "I'll get back to my snack, then," he said.
Garrus stood there for just a second—just long enough to miss the call (dammit, quick message—let her know I'll be free in a sec—that'll have to do)—and let the conversation soak. Because…it hadn't ended the way he expected. And, Spirits, he'd gone five minutes without fighting a family member? Maybe that'd be worth a nice email, just to commemorate the experience.
But, time waited for nobody, so he walked towards his room (instinctively, he instinctively walked towards his room), closed the door, and opened his omni-tool.
And that was more or less the start of how he ended up technically breaking several Alliance espionage laws.
3.
Garrus walked into his room—which hadn't changed all that much, despite him being off Palaven for a good five years—and re-routed the call to the monitor on his desk, just next to the bed. Any conversation might go on for a while—better to do it that way then wait until your arm cramped up. He pushed the buttons he needed to push and then, up on the screen, was Tali. Looked like she was doing the same, given how Garrus could see both her arms in the picture.
Genius observation as always, Garrus.
"Garrus?" Tali said. "Where are you? I think I see dolls in the background."
"Action figures," Garrus said. "Everybody had them. I'm at home, with Dad and my sister. Where're you? Back in the Flotilla?"
Tali nodded. "They set up a room on the Neema while I was gone. I guess they sorted out the name confusion sometime after my trial."
"Good, because your contact info in my omni-tool looked like a secret code for the longest time. I had to change it to keep my eyes from bleeding."
"What does it say now?"
"Angry Shotgun Lady. Open to suggestions, though."
Tali chuckled, on the other side of the screen. But the chuckle didn't last as long as it usually did, which wasn't all that unexpected. Tali'd been awfully quiet since…well, since everything happened. That wasn't like her…and while Garrus wasn't gonna find a new reason to start kicking himself—not today, anyways; a brain could only take so much—the fact he hadn't reached out to her, even just to check, was pretty damn obvious. Wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Tali was a bit sore about that, all things considered.
"Mmm, sorry, Tali," Garrus said. "I should've called, checked up on you. How're you doing?"
"I'm…fine, Garrus. What do you mean? I've been telling myself I should have called you earlier."
"Me?" Garrus shook his head. "Not sure what I did to deserve that. Appreciate it, but…yeah."
"And what did I do to deserve your concern?" Tali said.
Garrus blinked. "The uh…the whole birthday thing? With the dates and…?"
Tali crossed her arms. "Oh, Garrus, please: that was embarrassing and I felt…keelah I felt awful for Shepard. But her and I have already exchanged emails it's…I didn't have that much trouble moving on, at least not after that—after I explained everything to her."
"Wait." Garrus took a step back from his monitor, crossed his own arms. "You've been in contact with her? As in recently?"
Tali's arms dropped. "Have…have you not…keelah Garrus, you haven't spoken to her? Or even emailed her?"
"Sorry, do we have different definitions of being arrested? Do jails lets you do Q and A sessions with prisoners in the Flotilla?"
"We don't have room for jails in the Flotilla. But the Alliance allows you to exchange mail—they…Shepard said they've done that since before the Alliance Parliament was a thing. But, Garrus, you haven't tried calling her? I don't…I don't think she's used her phone call yet."
Garrus stated at the screen until his eyes dried up. "Nobody told me this," he mumbled.
"I didn't catch that," Tali said. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," Garrus said. "Just…cursing everybody that wears a suit for a living." He shook his head, paced a small circle in the middle of his room. "D'you think her phone call's still in the bank?"
"I…I think it's possible I mean…the only other person she'd call is Anderson, I think, and I got the impression that she doesn't want to drag him into anything like this. He stepped down as Councillor, if you hadn't heard."
"He did?" Garrus paced another small circle (not small enough to bang his shin on his bed, unfortunately). "Mmm, hadn't heard, but I guess it makes sense. He always complained about the paperwork."
"Shepard thought it was so he could help ready the Fleets."
"That makes sense too. Between him and Hackett, they'll make a good dent—but it's probably an uphill battle, still." Hackett, right—the distinguished gentleman that Garrus wanted to throttle. Shepard had said that thought'd crossed her mind a few times too but, hard to tell if she still felt that way.
Apparently he could've just asked—Spirits information was never where you needed it when you needed it.
"Are you going to call her?" Tali said, reading his damn mind.
"Definitely. And if she's already used up her call I'll keep spewing Reaper horror stories until the gatekeepers give up and go home."
"So you're not just avoiding her?"
There went his mandibles again. "Who says I'm doing that?"
No answer—not immediately, anyways.
"Tali, is that what Shepard thinks?"
"It…she was worried you had…collapsed in on yourself, a bit."
"A bit. She's worried I had a bit of a total psychological collapse."
"I'm wording it wrong. She meant it in a way that showed she was worried you were taking this very, very hard."
"And she actually told you that?"
"Keelah, Garrus, do I need to forward you the emails?"
"Wouldn't hurt…" Garrus shook his head. "Sorry, that was supposed to stay inside. I believe you. I'm just not doing a good job of following orders."
"Is that what she said to you? Right before you left?"
"Something like that, yeah." Garrus shrugged. "And here we are."
"If you're actually going to call her…then that's fine," Tali said. "I would only be worried if you had no intention of trying to talk to her. Unless you were lying when you said you didn't know about the email thing, but, you looked pretty serious to me."
"I learned the hard way that my body posture gives me away," Garrus said. "So, yeah, that was genuine surprise on my end."
"It does with quarians…" Tali trailed off, looked behind her—like somebody was gonna interrupt her call at any second. "Anyways, that answers a few of my questions. I'm…sorry you're taking this so hard, Garrus. And I'm sorry I contributed to it."
Garrus waved her off. "It's not your fault. Far from it, actually. If I'm remembering correctly, you tried to back out at least once…mmm, wait, 'back out' isn't the right way of putting it."
"I know what you're trying to say," Tali said. "It's…close enough. But, still, I'm sorry. I could have talked to Legion beforehand, maybe asked for some assistance." Tali started wringing her hands. "At the very least Legion wouldn't have overlooked the fact that she has an FAQtipedia page."
Yeah…he'd been avoiding thinking about that, too. Simplest solution—just look on the extranet and see that her birthday was April eleventh. 'Course he'd done something like that before and…mmm, didn't matter. Yet again, Garrus shook his head.
"Somebody else, could've said the same thing. But I don't like doing things the easy way, I guess. It all comes back to me." Garrus looked back up at the screen again; he'd been consulting the patterns in his childhood carpet for most of that introspection session. "Things getting chummy with the geth? I gotta say, I'm a bit surprised."
Tali started wringing her hands. "It's…moving quickly. On my and Koris's end, anyways—he's unsurprisingly interested in hearing about my and Legion's conversations."
Garrus' brow rose. "Sounds like you're working for Koris now. Any lingering friction from the trial?"
"You…could say that. About working with Koris, I mean. Tension over the trial is a whole other discussion." Tali looked around again. "Actually, I take that back: they're the same discussion."
"That sounds…worrying."
Tali took a breath. "If I contacted you even a week ago, I would have said there was talk of me joining the Admiralty Board…it stopped being 'talk' yesterday."
For the first time in a while, Garrus had a genuine smile on his face. "Spirits—congratulations, Tali. I legitimately can't think of anyone else more deserving of this than you."
"I…can think of a few people. Some of them might even want the job."
"I get that—I do. But to me, it sounds like the system's actually working. The people who want nothing more than a powerful job shouldn't ever get it, if you ask me."
"I know I know. Um, or at least I know you feel that way. I just…" Tali sighed. "Anyways, at least I can do to the Flotilla what Anderson and Hackett are doing to the Alliance. Or try to: I don't know if some of the Captain's are willing to replace the geth with the Reapers as the ultimate evil."
"You'll do great, Tali," Garrus said. "And maybe you'll give me progress updates? Not that it'll help but, I can rub some noses in it when the Apocalypse starts and the quarians are in a better defensive position than we are."
"Do you really think your government will be that stubborn?"
"Now that the person who screamed the loudest about Reapers is behind bars? Yeah, I've got a hunch they will be." Garrus sighed. "I'm not really in the mood to think about that right now. Feeling the Reapers breathe down my neck is partially why I'm in this mess."
"I don't think it's a mess, Garrus. If you're talking about Shepard, I mean."
"Appreciate the attempt, Tali, but my girlfriend's in jail and I haven't tried calling her. I think I'm in it worse than with the whole birthday thing."
"It just…it just sounds like you're saying the same things as before," Tali said. "And if Shepard had to give you an order to not hate yourself over this then…to me, that sounds a lot more pressing than anything else."
Translation: she wasn't really convinced that Garrus was honestly—cross his heart, spit on his visor—ignorant about the whole email thing. Just like Shepard didn't look the least bit convinced when he said he wouldn't destroy himself over this. He had good friends—anybody could see that. And in a lot of circumstances, having good friends that could cut through your BS whether you wanted them to or not was just about the best thing you could ever have in this universe. Maybe he'd come around to thinking that way about all this eventually, too, but until then…
Garrus looked at the door to his room; on the other side was Dad, probably still eating and reading.
"Had a good talk with my dad, if you can believe it," Garrus said. "Talked about…all the ways my sister and I are similar—or, we got to that point, eventually. It's starting to dawn on me just how hard it is for us Vakarians to break a habit."
He could see Tali cross her arms again. "How so?"
Garrus shrugged. "Too many examples to list." Before Tali could say anything, Garrus held up his hands. "Don't read too much into that. Let's just focus on the fact that I haven't talked to my now-criminal girlfriend, and I need to rectify that."
Tali looked around again, started up wringing her hands for the tenth or eleventh time that conversation. "So long as you know that you don't need to go to extreme lengths. I called you because I wanted to check how you were doing: I don't want to be the cause of more hardship for you."
Garrus's features softened. Not that he was particularly combative at that point anyways, but…yeah, he got what Tali was saying.
"I appreciate that, Tali," he said. "And believe me: last thing I want to do is make you feel that way. But it wasn't your fault last time and I've learned my lesson. I'm going to go through official channels—I'll even tell my dad. You know I'll be locked in if I do that."
Tali paused but, eventually, she nodded. "All right, well…I'm glad to hear all of that. More-so because it sounds like you still have the energy to be the Garrus we all know and love."
"Does the other Garrus owe you money? I can get the word out with C-SEC if you want."
Tali chuckled. "Just keep in contact, Garrus. It's always good to talk to you."
"You too, Tali," Garrus said.
And then the call ended and Garrus knew that he had to follow through—but follow through properly. Go through official channels so he could clear the air and take some worry of her chest…and everyone else's, by the sounds of it. Lot of pressure but, it'd be good practice for the nightmare that was staring everyone in the face.
And, yes, it'd be good for him too. Get this out of the way so he could think clearly about what was coming down the tunnel at them. Drastic measures would be breaking Shepard out and saying to hell with the whole thing—she was needed elsewhere. But Garrus wasn't gonna do that; he was gonna try and break old habits and think about this in a reasonable fashion.
Just focus on seeing someone very special to you, ignore the other pressing needs, and when you're in a better headspace, get to planning. Just like what Shepard did right before they attacked the Collectors; just like she did before the original Normandy found Ilos.
He phoned who he figured he needed to phone.
"Sorry, sir," the voice on the other end of the line said. "But we're not allowing personal calls at this time."
All right, well…he could still go through official channels. Still do this properly. And he did, in fact, tell Dad where he was going, so he'd kept that promise.
Just get to the Citadel, talk to the right people, and put all of this behind him. Don't anticipate failure and, maybe—just maybe—failure wouldn't bother showing its face this time.
Just maybe.
4.
"Mr. Vakarian," the officious prick on the other side of the desk said, "are you trying to prematurely age me?"
The officious prick—newly crowned Councillor Donnel Udina—was leaning over his desk like he wanted to pull Garrus across and pummel him to death. Mmm, or maybe Garrus was reading too much into it. He didn't look calm, though, and Garrus was doing his best to stay that way too.
Trying but, not necessarily succeeding.
"Aren't the 'joys of public service' supposed to keep you eternally youthful?" Garrus said. "Or is that just another one of the funny stories politicians tell themselves, like—"
"I would remind you, if possible, that this office is not the office has a very tight schedule. If this meeting consists entirely of your request to see Commander Shepard, then we can—without delay—end it here."
Udina stood up. Garrus did not. Garrus just stared at Udina—stared at watched Udina stare back at the flashing blue lights on Garrus's eyepiece. Eventually—and slowly—Udina sat back down.
"Evidently not," he said.
"I tried calling Shepard," Garrus said. "What I was told was, personal calls were off-limits."
"Commander Shepard has already used her allotted personal call," Udina said. "She held out for god-knows what reason, but she's been advised to seek legal counsel and she has, at the last possible second."
Garrus went from feeling his mandibles twitch to grinding his teeth in his mouth. "Glad to hear it," he said.
"There is not—and likely never was—anything you can do for her now. My suggestion is to take advantage of prevailing judicial opinion and make use of the prisoner email exchange service."
"So it was a waste of time coming here."
"Being that I don't live inside your head, I cannot answer that question for you. Now, if that will be all, I—"
It wasn't going to be all, even if it should. "You're going to call me naïve," Garrus said, "or maybe just plain stupid, but as humanity's Councillor, you should be making a hell of a lot bigger stink over this. You should be doing everything in your power to make the galaxy realize what Shepard's done—again—for every ungrateful sentient being." Garrus stood up. "I know I'm speaking to a rock formation that likes to pretend it makes Big Boy decisions, but Anderson's not around to tell you that to your face."
Garrus spun around to leave and got just as far as the stairs leading to the exit when—
"Sit down, please."
Garrus expected something to come out of Udina's mouth, but that? That wasn't it. So, slowly, Garrus turned and sat back down. He stared at Udina again, who looked neutral—a worrying sign.
"Mr. Vakarian," Udina said, "I understand that as a member of Shepard's crew you feel defensive towards her. But whether noted by you or not, we—are in—a political—crisis at the moment, and I will not further jeopardize the standing of this office by granting favour to someone who the Council must publicly declare to be a terrorist. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Mr. Vakarian?"
"If you're just going to repeat yourself with a slightly meaner tone, then you're wasting my time," Garrus said.
"Think about what I just said. The Council must—that word, right there—they must publicly declare Shepard to be a terrorist. They must agree with the Alliance Parliament, who themselves must take this position."
"Some people might want to debate you on that."
"Undoubtably. But our hands are tied, Mr. Vakarian. That does not mean we're happy about it."
Garrus shook his head. "Throwing people under the bus is the Council's favorite pastime. Keep in mind I worked C-SEC before I even knew who Shepard was. This observation goes back a ways." Garrus leaned forward. "Frankly I haven't seen anything to suggest that Alliance politicians are any different."
"We have a massive machine to maintain—a machine that's increasingly held together by duct tape and the collective prayers of everyone from the most pious munk to the most aggressive atheist. Throwing people under the bus, as you put it, is a decision that is made against the backdrop of complete pan-galactic pandemonium." Garrus went to say something; Udina's finger interrupted. "Now, I will not claim those decisions are made perfectly. But whenever they are made, we hardly enjoy it. Especially in circumstances where we deeply suspect something far worse than a destroyed solar system is at play."
Garrus blinked. It was like getting hit in the face by a hand made of ice. "You? You and everyone else on the Council—they actually think that? I can't even say I'll believe it when I see it: I'd check myself into a neurology unit first, more likely."
"If Shepard made a habit of shooting hostages or pushing people out windows or, god forbid, assaulting members of the press then, yes, this would have been easy. She would have been roundly condemned and that would be the end of it: the Council would release all private information we could to aid Alliance prosecutors. Shepard is a Spectre, and as we're all intimately aware, such a position makes it easy for the worst among us to run amok. She had every opportunity to be worse than Saren, and yet all she did was transmit secret Cerberus data to Alliance analysts, cause the defection of some of Cerberus's top agents, and—by all accounts—follow the orders of a decorated Alliance officer when she entered batarian space." Udina leaned forward again. "Those actions—and everything that's come before—make it hard for even the stupid among us to truly believe Shepard is a terrorist."
"So all that and you still go along with it? You still throw her under the bus?"
"The stupid among us have a decisive numerical advantage, Mr. Vakarian. Decisions are made with that in mind."
Garrus didn't consciously think this. He didn't see it, with his mind's eye, exit his brain and enter the external word. He didn't give himself enough time to follow up with the thought "hypocrite."
What he said, pretty much involuntarily, was: "You people are cynical bastards."
Something beeped on Udina's arm. He was in the process of answering it while he responded to Garrus. "Coming from you," he said, "I should think that's a compliment. Now, if you excuse me, I've delayed my next appointment long enough."
Garrus was dismissed. And what he'd said in there rattled around his brain. Cynical bastards…enough time had passed for him to call himself a hypocrite but, Spirits, it felt hollow. Something about hearing Udina pull that line of thought to an extreme conclusion…he'd felt this way before, hadn't he?
Yeah, when Shepard grilled him about where the dividing line is between a good guy wanting to win at all costs and a bad guy who thinks he's always right.
All that and still no Shepard.
All right, he'd gone the usual route and gotten nowhere. And all things considered, he was in a mess. Somewhere deep down—probably in the same place where that hypocritical feeling was coming from—he knew it'd end up this way. He knew he'd do something a lot of outside observers would consider "extreme."
Old habits were hard to break, right?
Right, that was the issue. Sure made the feeling of breaking another promise to another friend duller, pretending you didn't have a choice.
Next stop? Earth.
Time to break into Alliance Command.
5.
You technically weren't supposed to get good at breaking into buildings in C-SEC. Didn't really serve the public trust, being able to do that. So the only infiltration training Garrus got as an officer of the law was undercover work—something that really wasn't gonna fly on Earth, unless they'd started making bodysuits that covered up your fringe.
Luckily, Garrus had a different idea of what served the public trust and learned how to break into buildings anyways. Came in handy on Omega, that's for sure. And, hopefully, it'd come in handy here too…with significantly fewer people dead, if it could be helped.
Mmm, not the kind of thing you wanted to think about right before a mission. But it was better than thinking about Shepard and just what the hell he was planning on saying to her. Scale a building and crawl through the vents? Easy enough—not like buildings made a habit of changing their height on you. Trying to sort through everything that'd happened in the last two weeks? Whole different discussion.
This Vancouver place that apparently was a pretty big deal of the Alliance, it was…nice. Congested as hell and he could've sworn he heard someone say the rent was so high even CEOs lived on the street, but as far as the scenery went, it was a nice place. The bone-white Alliance towers stuck out a bit, if only because it had fighters buzzing the main towers every five minutes. Made it easy to navigate the roadways though; and after a few tense minutes trying to sneak past some maintenance crews, Garrus was into the belly of the beast, so to speak.
Would've been a hell of a lot easier if he'd just borrowed Kasumi's tactical cloak, but if Garrus wasn't allergic to doing things the easy way, he wouldn't be Garrus.
It took him nearly an hour to work his way through the Alliance complex, though, and that was all assuming he was heading in the right direction. Rumour had it (and by "rumour" he meant "the front desk receptionist was louder than a dreadnaught's main cannon") that Shepard was about halfway up the main tower, on what used to be an administrative floor that apparently didn't do important enough work—at least in the eyes of someone. She had more or less full movement of that floor and just a single guard—a "James Vega"—to keep her there. Made Garrus's job a bit easier…but it also underscored a bit of what Udina had said, he guessed. They were banking on Shepard's reputation for not causing undue headaches for the Alliance…and the Alliance as a whole probably wasn't too keen on locking her away.
Mmm, and there came that feeling again—the one where he had to take a step back and realize that Udina might've been too cynical even for him. That…that required some thought, but it was less of a requirement than seeing Shepard and just talking to her…
…spirits it was never going to just be that. Things always got brought to the surface with her. A whole host of different thoughts were going to be aired out for an audience of two, and Garrus wouldn't've been able to articulate any of them until Shepard said something, because that was how it always worked.
Don't chicken out now, Vakarian. Keep on moving.
And he did.
He'd worked his way to the outside of the building, just a little ways from a set of balconies. One of those balconies was Shepard's, so he just had to scale a three-hundred-foot drop and then…do something. Tap on the window, maybe. Probably best to not make noise since who knew what cameras and sensors were plastered to the walls. Not a lot, actually, if his initial recon was accurate—the building very clearly was not intended to hold a prisoner, so that was good—but you didn't want to take that risk.
Garrus jumped from balcony to balcony and managed to land—gracefully—on the balcony attached to Shepard's room. "Gracefully" in this case meant he didn't land on his face, because he only caught on that it was Shepard's room at the last second, when he'd already primed his legs for another jump. The benefit of dating someone with red hair—it stood out, even if certain people's brains were a bit slower recognizing it than they should've been.
But…there she was. Sitting at her desk, feet up, datapad in hand, TV tuned to ANN. There were a million different cliches he could've said to himself at that point—something about looking like a figurine in a snow globe, maybe, or the poster of a model in a storefront window—but truth was? She was Shepard, and that was special enough. Shepard, in the flesh, and not a single Alliance marine around to lead her away in handcuffs. He could stand there and pretend none of that had happened—it'd all been a nasty dream his overtired brain cooked up one night—and, matter of fact, Shepard was just recalled to Earth to do some administrative work. She was in an administrative building after all, wasn't she?
Yeah…in a perfect world, that's what she was doing. On Earth, rallying their defenses—just like Tali—and making sure the galaxy she'd worked so hard to protect was ready to fight back the abyss with her. In a perfect world, all those favours people owed her would be called in and the single largest fleet in galactic history would be ready to go, greeting the Reapers at the galaxy's edge. In a perfect world…
…there wouldn't be a bird on his shoulder. Spirits not now, bird-thing. This is what racism got you: all of a sudden the birds thought he was one of them. Off, stupid bird. Some cat's gonna have the best day of their nine lives when I beat you to death and throw your body over the ledge.
Garrus shoed the bird away, which is why he didn't notice Shepard look behind her, get up from her chair, and walk to the window. He didn't notice until he suddenly looked up and, there she was, on the other side of the glass, standing right in front of him.
Garrus let out a sound that could only be described as the kind of thing you'd hear in an engine room if the drive core was melting down. Much like an engine, that sound had momentum to it, too: it managed to propel Garrus backwards just a tad, just a few steps.
Those steps managed to put him in the path of a large potted plant, and that large potted plant managed to take his legs out from under him. Then a different sound escaped his lips and he flipped over the edge of the balcony, towards the street. And that was the end of Garrus Vakarian: The End, good morning, good afternoon, and good night galaxy.
Except, no, of course not, because this galaxy had Shepard in it, and she had quick enough reflexes to grab his arm before he completely slipped out of reach. Garrus dangled three hundred feet above the street and, looking up, saw the strained face of his dearly beloved girlfriend.
Yeah…he was gonna hear about this in a few minutes, wasn't he?
"Hi, honey," he said. He looked down, then up, tried on a smile. "Believe it or not but, this's all going to plan."
"I so want to yell and scream at you," Shepard said.
"Tell you what. Pull up on the balcony and, I promise, I won't even put up a fight."
Shepard did just that…and then there they were, standing right in front of each other, no glass to separate them. No nothing to separate them. All Garrus wanted to do was reach out and hold her…but…well, maybe give it a try?
"So…all that being said—about the, uh, yelling and screaming—mind if I…?" he held out his arms, but just barely. Shepard hadn't even really waited for him to finish speaking before enveloping her.
"That was the absolute stupidest thing you've ever done," she said, face buried in his chest armour.
He squeezed her back, looked down at the red hair flowing down to his arms. "Glad to…uh, see that a few things've been bumped to second place."
Shepard pulled away, looked up at him. He didn't like the look on her face. Angry he could deal with. Disappointed, though? No, no he really wasn't equipped to deal with that.
"Garrus you don't mean…please tell me you're not talking about—"
"I'm talking about a lot of things," Garrus said, a bit harsher than he'd intended. Didn't bother correcting himself, though. "It's why I'm here. I tried calling but…mmm, even if it got through, I figured this needed to be something we talked about in person. And I wasn't planning on waiting for your trial."
Shepard just stared at him for a little while…then she sighed, and motioned for him to follow her into the room. Garrus did, and then he waited for…what, exactly? He had that feeling in his gut, but he couldn't place what was causing it. That wasn't a good sign—and that's discounting the fact that he was dangling over a balcony not five minutes ago.
Shepard stood next to her desk, arms crossed. Garrus did the same.
"I guess it wasn't fair of me to give you an order like that," she said. "About not letting it destroy you. Not my call, at the end of the day."
Garrus shrugged. "That thought never crossed my mind. You wanted to get ahead of something, and while under pressure, that was the solution you hit on."
"Didn't work, though, did it?"
Garrus shook his head. "I screwed up, Shepard. I'm not going to pretend I didn't."
"I was perfectly fine with thinking you'd planned it for the day I was getting hauled off, right up until I realized there was no way you could've known. I'm serious, Garrus: I loved it. It…I loved every second of what you put together."
"They put you in handcuffs in front of everybody. And sorry, Shepard, but I'm not buying for a second that being surrounded by everything we'd set up did anything but make the situation worse."
"As if that's your call to make. It's my head—I know what was going on inside it." Shepard started holding her arm, looked down at the floor. "Besides, the Alliance was early. If they'd stuck to plan we'd've been putting away the streamers."
"Plan?"
Shepard kept holding her arm and looking down. "Yeah, the plan." She stopped holding her arm, looked Garrus right in the eyes. "I was in my dress blues, remember? The plan was…I'd get on a shuttle and wait a few AU away from the Normandy. Just to make sure they knew I wouldn't resist." She looked at the floor again for a brief second before forcing her eyes back up. "I thought it'd make it easier, too. For…"
"For the crew."
"Yeah, them too. I…really wasn't sure how I'd handle having to say goodbye to you, Garrus." Shepard took a deep breath. "So…now you know. I'm a dirty coward. Cards on the table, if you hadn't put everything together, the last thing time we would've interacted would've been…yeah."
Garrus didn't say anything right away. And Shepard didn't add anything else. They just stared at each other and let the fighters buzz the tower again.
"That doesn't make me feel any better," Garrus said eventually.
"It's not supposed to," Shepard said. "I tried to run out on you, Garrus. Hell I told myself I didn't need to bother calling because you'd probably—wait, hold on, I'm wording that wrong."
"No, you're not. I didn't call. You've got every right to—"
"I didn't either! And I should have because—leaving aside how you were probably being interrogated at the time—the last thing I said to you was an order."
"It wasn't an order, you didn't—you didn't give me an order."
"Didn't I? Sure felt like one. How's that for showing your boyfriend you care. If you'd done that to me I would've been pissed."
"Well I didn't follow it, did I? I'm here and I spent two weeks picking fights with people even with that order. So how much worse could it've gotten if you hadn't given me one, hmm? You were concerned about me—how's that for you boyfriend showing he cares for you?"
"You're going to say that after all you did for me? Garrus I always know you care—people in friggin Andromeda can see you care now, too. The whole point of me giving you an—the whole point of me telling you to go easy on yourself is because you should. You don't deserve even a tenth of the drubbings you give yourself."
Garrus wanted to keep fighting, but…this was Shepard. Whatever part of him slept during fights with other people, it woke up and told him to just look at who the hell he was talking to. You don't fight with Shepard; under no circumstances do you let yourself go down that path.
So…Garrus just sighed.
"I don't even know what I'm getting worked up about anymore," he said.
He also didn't know where the hell he needed to take this conversation. He'd lost the plot, dropped the ball, however you wanted to word it. He was beating himself up again, sure, but wasn't it a bit justified? You go to all these lengths to see your girlfriend and you don't even bother coming up with a plan? Mmm, seemed completely backwards, it being easier to improvise under sustained gunfire than when you were just sitting down to have a chat.
He felt Shepard take his arm, though, and guide him towards the bed. She sat down and, after a moment's pause, Garrus followed suit.
Another bit of silence, another flyby from the fighters. Then Shepard spoke.
"When I talked to Tali, we ended up digging into why a birthday was so important in her eyes. Because that's what she said, you know: she said you and her talked and she didn't exactly dissuade you from a big celebration."
Garrus didn't say anything; he just looked at Shepard.
"What she figures is, she saw my arrest and thought a lot about her trial, about how she was on the verge of being exiled. She wanted nothing more than a sense of normalcy when all that was going on, and birthdays are about as normal a thing as you can get, so…" Shepard chuckled. "It's funny just how duty-bound your typical quarians thinks. Can't name another species like that for the life of me."
"Mmm," Garrus said. "I get what you're saying, but I don't think you need to be a turian to figure a boyfriend should plan something for their girlfriend's birthday."
Shepard shrugged. "But the way you did it, I mean, c'mon—tell me you didn't have it mapped out like you were planning a raid on a red sand dealer."
"What are we talking about here, Shepard? What're you trying to get at?"
Shepard sighed. "All I'm saying is, you went at this the same way you'd've gone at a military operation."
"And so, since it didn't work out, I'm right back to where I was with Sidonis? Feeling sorry for myself, for my failure?"
"What? Garrus no, I'm not—that's not even close to what I'm saying."
Garrus stared ahead at the TV with ANN's muted 24/7 newscast spewing information at him that he didn't give a damn about. "Maybe I'm making an observation about myself, then," he said.
He felt Shepard's hand on his own. He didn't pull away, luckily. "Yeah, well, you're wrong."
Garrus couldn't completely wipe the scowl off his face when he turned to look at Shepard. "So you've got exclusive jurisdiction in your head, but mine's open for everybody to see?"
Shepard shook her head. "I could've worded that better—I'm sorry. But from my perspective, you're not back to square one. All I was saying is that you do big, grand gestures—with half a million moving parts and enough flair to make James Bond jealous. I sort of suspect it's a cultural thing, that was the whole…that's why I was bringing up Tali."
Garrus looked at the TV again, but nothing registered. Again—for about the nineteen millionth time—he sighed.
"It isn't—not really. Turian life is supposed to be orderly: that's the thread running from the military to the civilian sector. Big grand gestures don't mix well with an expectation for being orderly."
"All right, I was wrong. I'm sorry, Garrus—I thought I was helping."
"You're probably still right about the other thing. I did treat this like a military operation, because that's where I feel the most comfortable. And, Spirits, trying to do anything that stinks of affection is far from my comfort zone." He turned to Shepard. "I don't go around assuming that a bullet to the head is the best way to solve the world's problems, but I'm still…I still take failures personally. And…I don't know, maybe I just think what we've got is too good of a thing for me to hold on to. I've thought I've had good things before; they never last."
He felt Shepard squeeze his hand. "That's on me. I should've swallowed my own damn pride and fear and just stuck around, given you a proper goodbye."
Garrus shook his head, pulled his hand away. "It's not you—this is a me problem. I don't know what's going on in my head half the damn time, but I know I was having these thoughts well before I got here." Just like he'd told himself: talking to Shepard brought things to the surface that he didn't have names for, not when they were locked in his head. Too bad nothing good ever came from conversations like this; if they did, the past two weeks would've looked a hell of a lot different.
Garrus took a deep breath, tried his best to not look at Shepard. "Old habits die hard, I guess. Maybe it's a turian thing—I think it's mostly a Vakarian thing. But if I haven't changed in the way I need to then…then I understand—"
"Hold on," Shepard said. She rose from the bed and walked out in front of Garrus. Now she was standing in front of him, giving him the "Commander" look that usually got turned on other people. "Garrus, I'm not trying to change you. That's—c'mon, I have a bit more self-respect than that. I got over my 'I can change him' phase around the same time the batarians invaded."
There wasn't venom behind those words but…but she didn't bring up Mindoir lightly. That meant something, what she'd just said.
"I didn't mean—I'm not trying to imply anything about you, Shepard." Garrus stood up too. "All I'm saying is that…look, try and think back to Sidonis. When we were on the Citadel? Going after Harkin? I never said there wasn't a better way; I knew there was a better way, you showed me a better way. I just didn't think I was capable of navigating that path myself." Garrus paced to the window, watched the fighters buzz again, then walked back to the bed. "I don't think you're trying to change me. I want to change, be a better version of myself, try to see the world a little more optimistically, give myself a break…but it's been two years, Shepard. I don't know if that's ever going to happen."
"Garrus…" Shepard paused, and that was it, wasn't it? He'd broken through, convinced her he was right. It…at least…at least the saviour of the galaxy would have a clear head. At the very least, he'd made sure of that.
But then he felt Shepard envelop him in a hug again, and despite a fleeting feeling that he should pull away—not make it any more difficult than it needed to be—Garrus let her hold him.
When she pulled away she still had that "Commander" look on her. And, truth be told…he found it oddly comforting.
"You're wrong. You're wrong about not having changed. I'll happily litigate whether people can see inside your head, but as your commanding officer—someone who can't do their job unless I try my best to understand the people I'm serving with—I'll say this with confidence: you're wrong."
Garrus's mandibles twitched. "Request for further clarification, Commander."
Shepard assumed a military posture. "My observations have led me to believe that since combing aboard the Normandy, you've increased interactions with other crewmembers three-fold. You've routinely expressed both admiration for your Commanding officer in what said officer would describe as a 'cute' and 'suave' manner. You have also—it has not gone unnoticed—rapidly gained a reputation for having a quick wit and an ability to engage in affable banter far beyond what was displayed during a previous posting. Preliminary reports also suggest you went out of your way to involve Miranda in Operation: Birthday Bash."
"I needed her password."
"Garrus…" Shepard said, posture going back to normal.
"Right right, sorry. Um—you may continue with your evaluation, Commander."
"What more needs to be said? If there's a baseline for change over time, I'm not aware of it. But regardless, you're a joy to be around and anyone who says otherwise is guilty of spreading misinformation, a felony under the updated Alliance Military Code." Shepard's posture went back to normal; Garrus followed suit. "The important thing, though, is if you like the person you've become. You're not hurting anyone, Garrus—hell you're doing the exact opposite of that. All I care about—all I've ever cared about—is if you love who you are as much as I love who you are."
Garrus didn't say anything—not for a good, long while. Part of him thought he heard the fighters buzz the two twice but, that probably wasn't right; it probably hadn't been that long.
Then again…Shepard would be the type of person to wait ten minutes. She was…she was great, like that.
"I don't know," Garrus said eventually. "Me and me, we don't…we don't always get along." He looked up at Shepard, though, and tried to give her a genuine smile. And you know what? It wasn't as hard to smile as he thought. "I could do better about that, but…I guess it's good to hear, um, such a thorough report on my activities. That helps, I think."
"Please don't tell me that's the only way to get you to listen."
"Mmm, well, at least you've got options now, if it is." Garrus shook his head, looked at the floor, and, letting his shoulders drop, released a planet's worth of tension—tension that he hadn't even realized he'd been holding in until that point. "Spirits…all this because of a fucking birthday."
"Language, mister."
"Sue me." He looked back up at Shepard. "And also forgive me?"
Shepard was smiling—a warm, special smile that Garrus never tired of seeing. "Only if you forgive me for being a coward."
"Not what most people would call you, given how many more Reaper's you've killed than the average Joe. But, sure, I think I can find time in my schedule to forgive you."
Shepard chuckled, then sighed, then flopped down on the bed. Garrus sat down too. He watched her spread her arms out and stare at the ceiling; he put a hand on her knee and rubbed it around a bit, just to let her know he was still there…as if she couldn't see that for herself.
Shepard pulled herself off the bed and sat with Garrus. They didn't look at anything in particular for a while—they just let themselves enjoy each other's company.
"All right," Shepard said, "all that being said—keeping fully in mind that we both need to remember what we just talked about—I've gotta know: why didn't you just look my birthday up online?"
"Mmm, well…I can think of two reasons," Garrus said. "The first is, as we already discussed, I don't like making things easy for myself. 'Grand gestures,' expectations, comfort zones—all that. More importantly, though, is I've actually searched you up online before. Call me protective but, I don't like some of the websites dedicated to you. I've avoided the whole thing ever since."
"Websites? Like what?"
"Well there's the tribute pages: those get creepy really quickly. There're the ones accusing you of being a supernatural being—accusing you, I'm choosing my words deliberately. I found a site that was dedicated to, um, a…very particular part of your body."
"Uh-huh? Which was…?"
Garrus looked at Shepard's boots.
"Seriously?" Shepard said. "I'm either in uniform or head-to-toe combat armour—where the hell're they getting the photos?"
"Some of them are fakes—I should know, I've seen the real ones often enough. Buuut I'm also pretty sure someone in Cerberus was either trying to pass on secret information through unconventional means, or has an omni-tool filled with very interesting pictures of you taking off your armour."
"Remind me to start wearing three pairs of socks."
"Up to you. 'Course if you hadn't talked me out of killing people as a way of solving problems, I could've handled it for you."
"I dunno if that'd get a pass from the Council, Garrus."
"Hypocrites the lot of them."
They both shared a chuckle. And, for the first time in far too long, Garrus felt…relaxed.
Which meant now he could focus on how much he was gonna miss the person sitting next to him.
"I had to scale a building for us to talk," Garrus said. "I really don't feel like leaving yet."
Shepard looked at the door. "Lieutenant Vega gives me a fair amount of space. We could…y'know…."
"Well all the talk about socks has gotten me in a mood."
Shepard gave him a smile—warm in its own way, but also very much suggesting something a little more…active, than just sitting and talking.
"Then let's not waste it," Shepard said.
If this "Lieutenant Vega" did accidentally walk in on them, he at least had the sense to not say anything.
A small epilogue is coming down the pipes, so stay tuned for that.
Oh and apologies if anyone was hoping for...y'know, spice. I thought about adding more details but I didn't want to accidentally turn this into a horror novella, since I've got about as much ability to write "sexy" as whoever wrote the Book of Revelation.