It's been a very (very) long time! Sorry for the wait!
The chapter posted here has been trimmed of explicit sexual content to comply with FFN's policies. If you'd like to read the full, unredacted version of chapter 18, it's available on AO3 (archiveofourown dot org/works/6733471/chapters/87158542). If you disable javascript in your browser you can copy/paste that url — or just search AO3 for "alden" to find me there :)
Happy N7 Day! Thanks for reading!
18. BYPASS [redacted version]
Rifle-callused fingertips feathered over the scars on her face. His eyes searched hers, drinking her in, sifting details out of the shadow in the oceanic gloom of her cabin.
Shepard tipped her cheek into the warmth of his bare hand. Met his ghost-blue gaze, and held it. Pressed her lips to his palm in a penitent's kiss.
He drew back a little and murmured something she didn't catch. It was drowned beneath the rush of dread and longing that swept through her, watching the changes that swept over his expression; the troubled line of his brow, the tension in his jaw, the pulse that jumped erratically beneath the fine soft suede of his throat.
She parted her lips. Drew in breath to say— what, exactly?
He cupped her jaw, tilting her face up. Shepard froze, staring.
Garrus made a quiet, jagged noise like a cliff crumbling away, seized a black-gloved fistful of her uniform, and pulled. Shepard scrambled up onto her knees, hooked her hand in his cowl, and yanked him closer still.
Their mismatched mouths met in the diminishing space between them. A hot slide of tongue, a click of teeth. The same long, shuddering, desperate breath, pouring out of them at last.
Her pulse thrummed in her ears. His soft rich hums and murmurs answered her every movement. It was nothing like the last time, high above the wards in his ancient, abandoned bar; the thin cool air, the stillness, the grand decaying mirror across the room echoing their every movement, the stripes of golden sunlight spilling across the rich, dark, moth-eaten carpet. Clouds of dust blooming with each gesture, each step. Time made manifest. Time exploding. Time collapsing.
His eyes on hers; her eyes on his. Something shifting in that moment, reorienting towards him, a vast weight that floated up and then resettled without a sound. His strong, strange, chisel-carved face. His bruised idealism. His low laugh. Her polar north.
It felt simpler than breathing, then, to kiss him. Now kissing him stole her breath.
His grip on her uniform lifted her half off her knees. His strong, strange tongue filled her mouth, cutting off her air. Shepard's hands scrabbled over slick armor, finding no anchor, nothing to hold on to, nowhere to go but forward, nothing to ask for but more; she sank into his grasp, licking back against him, dizzy, outmatched. He cupped the back of her skull, her hair snarled between his long thick fingers. The heat of his bare skin poured into her like sunlight.
She made a small, needy noise. His subvocals dropped into a growl. His grip on her jaw tightened, sealing her mouth to his, his teeth pressing painfully against the seam of her swollen lips. He held her and fucked her mouth with his extraordinary tongue as if he were done with the human limitations of her flesh, done with limitations altogether, done with being separate beings, separate bodies. Done with language and translator implants and reasonable arguments and permission and please, when instead he could just force the muscle of his words straight inside her, could pour in all his alien stubbornness and opinions, stretch her open, split her wide. Twist her apart. Make her listen. Make her understand.
Glitter flashed behind her eyes. Her chest ached. Shepard bit down on his upper lip, hard, until he broke from her with a hiss, and she gasped in cold lungfuls of cabin air.
Her mouth throbbed in time with her pulse. It tasted like iodine and salt.
Garrus ghosted a finger over the swell of her bottom lip, good mandible pulled in tight, concern written over his brow.
His voice was taut. "I hurt you."
"You can try," she said.
His eyes flicked to hers.
She lifted her chin. Put a hand on his chest, and shoved him back hard into her terrible sofa. Swung her knee over his hip— ignoring his startled glance and intake of breath— and plopped herself down into his hardsuited lap.
The wan glow from his visor spilled over both their faces, poised millimeters apart. His targeting reticule stuttered and lost focus.
Garrus looked down at her hips, splayed and straddling his, then back up at her. "You just... fit right in there, huh."
Shepard looked down, too. Oh. Yeah. This probably wouldn't work if both partners had cowls.
She pressed herself up against him, breastbone to breastplate, flesh molding obscenely to the contours of his armor. Twined her arms around the back of his neck. "Problem?"
His eyes slitted. "Only that I can't feel you."
"What a shame." She stroked a line down the hard ceramic plate of his thigh.
His jaw clicked in irritation.
She smiled at him with the benevolence of a saint. Rocked slowly, obscenely, back and forth over his lap. "Not my fault you came overdressed for the occasion."
He shot another glance down at her hips. The hide on his neck darkened. "...I didn't exactly plan for this, Shepard."
"I'll help you out, if you help me," she purred.
Garrus leaned in and licked the blood off her bottom lip. Bit down gently. Too gently. "Deal."
At his direction, she attacked the catches of his hardsuit with renewed purpose, peeling off breastplate, backplate, bracers, gauntlets, tossing it all into a careless pile at the corner of her couch. She shimmied her way off his lap and down to the floor to tackle cuisses and greaves and boots, batting his hands away when he tried to assist, until finally she got him pared down to his sleek black undersuit. A knife-edged, broad-shouldered shadow.
Garrus gave her a half-instant to bask in her accomplishment. Then he reached down, grabbed two fistfuls of her uniform, and hauled her back up into his lap. She pressed kisses to his firm thin lips, his pointy chin. Bit down on the sweeping, blue-painted blade of his one perfect cheekbone. Drank in the heat that radiated off him like a furnace, his long straight limbs, his wiry strength, his familiar-strange smell of copper and cinnamon and dry earth.
He tugged on her earlobe and drew her back in for a long, lingering, open-mouthed kiss. While she was distracted, he hooked a finger into the collar of her uniform and yanked.
The snaps popped open. The zipper didn't even put up a fight. The cloth parted down between her breasts with a ripping sound and a wash of cold air.
Shepard parted from the kiss. "—Hey."
Garrus spared a glance for the ruined seam. "Dock it from my paycheck."
"Miranda handles payroll. You wanna be the one to fill out the incident report? Or should I?"
"Don't mind doing paperwork if it's for a good cause." He shot her a lopsided smile, and double-tapped the side of his visor. "Think she'll want photographic evidence?"
Shepard unhooked his visor and tossed it aside with a clatter. Revenge.
His undersuit was bisected by a long, curving, diagonal zipper. She seized hold of the catch and yanked.
It sliced him open from throat to hip. The fabric split and spilled away, revealing a taut expanse of pale brown and silver: bare chest, abdomen, half of one proud shoulder, an extravagant flare of hipbone. Muscle, sinew, hide, skin. And scarring. Glossy, mottled folds of lavender-gray swept from his bandaged jaw clear down to the point of his collarbone.
A gouge the width of her wrist had been chipped out of the delicate rim of his cowl. Shepard traced a fingertip over the ragged edge.
The way he watched her— the set of his jaw, the tilt of his head— she knew that he knew exactly what she was thinking.
The way he reached out to trace the surgical scars that spiderwebbed her bare clavicle, mapping latitude and longitude with the tip of a claw, making her shiver— she knew what he was thinking too.
"Sorry I was late," she whispered.
"Sorry I wasn't there," he replied, just as softly.
She almost snorted. It wasn't equivalent at all. He hadn't known. He wasn't responsible. What could he have done, if he had been there? Nothing. Perished. The SR-1 had been overwhelmed in a matter of seconds.
But... if he had been there, and if he could do what she could—
She searched his face.
How many times would he have died to relive that catastrophe, trying to save her, trying to save everyone, trying to do it all perfectly?
Zero, because of his faith?
Infinite, because of his character?
She brushed her thumb over his chipped cheekbone. "Maybe, in some other world, we both got it right."
He pressed his face against her hand. Regarded her with a long, steady, heavy-lidded gaze. "I'd like to think so."
Shepard bent her head and kissed him.
Garrus kissed her back lightly, lightly, the barest graze of lip. She indulged him as long as she could stand it.
She pulled back. Rested her forehead against his. Looked down into his intent, electric-blue eyes.
"Vakarian," she said.
"Yes," he murmured.
She cradled his beautiful face in her palms. "Hurry up and destroy me already."
A splutter of a laugh. He reached out for the flayed halves of her uniform top, and yanked the material down over her bare shoulders. The talons of his exposed hand dragged against her skin, leaving three blood-flushed trails in his wake. "That's not funny, Shepard."
"Liar," she said. "I'm hilarious."
He leaned in close. The edge of his cheekbone pressed into the side of her throat. "Liar?"
Instead of answering, she grabbed his wrist, peeled off his remaining glove in one sharp tug, and tossed it away. She rose up onto her knees and shoved the asymmetrical tangle of his suit fabric aside, down, freeing his chest, his shoulders, his upper arms, then struggled with the cutouts over his elbow spurs, until he finally took pity on her and undid the snaps. She was still working the cuffs over his hands as he carefully pried her the rest of the way out of her uniform top, and pushed it down around her waist.
She hadn't bothered putting a bra on again after the shower. Funny how these things worked out.
They sat there taking each other in for the space of a few breaths.
He looked like a living sculpture, polished and rippling, a long, lean twist of silvery muscle. Every inch of him was elegant. Spare. Dangerous.
She only hoped he was finding similar things to appreciate about her. She felt squishy and unimpressive by comparison.
Garrus reached out and traced the edge of his claw along the line of her clavicle, then down. His fingertip brushed over the swell of her breast. Her breath stuttered as he grazed her nipple; he paused and flicked a glance at her face, then moved on, cupping its weight in his hand for a moment, before continuing his slide south over the shifting planes of her ribs, her abdomen, the upper curve of her hip.
"You're so smooth all over," he said, wonderingly.
She watched his eyes as they roved over her body. "...Problem?"
"Definitely not." His good mandible tipped out in a half-smile. "It's disorienting, though. You seem so defenseless. Soft."
"Yeah, well." Shepard ran her palms over the chipped plating of his cowl. Stroked the pebbly hide of his trapezius, the firm leather of his chest, the ridges of his abdomen. Noted his sudden tension as she dipped her fingers into the divots of his hipbones, his hitched breath as she brushed over the startling silken texture of his waist. "You look like a combat knife on legs, but you don't hear me complaining."
"Complain?" He flicked a mandible at her. "You'd marry your combat knife, if it were legal."
"I'll marry a knife if I damn well want to. I'm a Council Spectre." She gestured to her desk, where the reinstatement card lay buried somewhere in a drawer— but he caught her hand, and brought it up to his mouth.
"Remember that time back on Rayingri?" Garrus murmured. "When that geth sapper snuck up on us and almost bagged Williams?"
"Yeah? What about it," Shepard said, puzzled.
"You got so pissed off you didn't even shoot. You punched it in the face until its lens splintered. Then you pinned it down, put your knee on its throat, and stabbed it through the gun arm." He nipped the base of her palm, and let go.
She leaned back a little, frowning. "So?"
He made a low rumbling sound. "I replayed that one on my visor for months."
"You—" Shepard stared at him open-mouthed.
Garrus just chuckled, and squeezed her hips.
She pressed a fierce, tender kiss to his undamaged cheekbone. Bumped her face against his like an affectionate cat. "You're a goddamn pervert, Vakarian."
"You love it," he said, and set about removing her from her uniform with his familiar, methodical, formidable will.
By some wordless mutual agreement, they stayed by the couch.
He stared at her. The skin of his neck was flushed blue. His claws flexed against the leather seat cushion.
Shepard climbed up over him. Straddled his hips.
His eyes were dark, pupils dilated, a thin ring of pale blue around all that liquid black.
What was it he'd said to her, back then?
Their empty glasses lying forgotten on the carpet, her borrowed dress peeled halfway down her back, her hand pressed to his precious, damaged face—
What had he said to her, in that one aching instant before she spilled over in a rupture of confession and ruined everything? Before she threw open the gates and dragged him down into her bruised reality? Before he'd cursed her name, told her she belonged in the hell she'd made, turned his back, walked away?
"Do you want this," she murmured. No, that wasn't quite right. "Do you want me?"
"I do," Garrus answered, soft and rich, voice thrumming through her bones.
She smiled, and slid him home.
The soreness and stinging faded with each beat of her slowing heart. Her sweaty skin was chilling quickly in the cold cabin air.
She stood up, and took his hand. "C'mon."
"Where—"
She dragged him over to her bed, threw the covers back, and clambered in. Tugged at his hand when he wouldn't move.
"Shepard?"
"Sleepy," she murmured. "Get in."
He made a humming noise. "Is this a weird human thing?"
"Probably. In."
He tucked the fading remnants of his erection behind his plating, and settled in beside her with ill grace. She examined him for a moment, then wordlessly handed over all her pillows.
"Thanks." He stuffed one under his cowl and the rest behind his neck. "Sorry in advance if I tear anything."
"Don't worry about it." She scooted in. Twined a leg around his. "Sorry about the weird human thing. Endorphins. Bonding hormones. Gotta stay close or I'll get sad."
He rumbled. "That's... actually pretty cute, Shepard."
She thumped a fist on his chest. "Hush."
He was warm and solid and right there beside her. The low note of his breathing had come to feel like home.
In hindsight, it was a little embarrassing how quick she drifted off.
When she woke up, some hours later, he was sitting up in bed, reading from his omni-tool. Dim orange light spilled over his face and pooled inside the hollow of his cowl.
He noticed. "Hi."
"Hi," she murmured.
They looked at each other for a minute.
She reached up from her tangle of sheets, and touched his cheek.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I really am. I wish I'd told you everything from the start. I was afraid, and I thought it would mess things up. But now—"
"—Now it can't get any more messed up," he finished.
"Exactly."
"Shepard..." He powered off his omni-tool. The warm glow blinked out, leaving them washed in shadow. "You always say we get to choose how we respond. But you took my choice away from me. Lawson's, too."
"I know," she said.
"If it was just that, I'd get over it. But..." He lifted a shoulder, then let it fall.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I know."
His eyes narrowed. "Have we had this conversation before?"
"No!" Shepard sat up. "No. None of this—" They were skirting the boundaries of what was safe to say in front of EDI. She waved her hand. "Not since the Collectors."
"Okay." Garrus let out his breath. "Good."
She reached out and took his hand in hers, pairing up her fingers to match. "You were right about how I was acting. Like none of it mattered. Like no one else was real. But I'm... I don't think like that anymore. Everything matters now. It's all real. You're real." She contemplated their intertwined fingers. Silvery leather and smooth brown skin. "You're so real, it hurts."
"But you'd still leave me behind," he said, voice flat.
Shepard dropped his hand into the covers. "Garrus— I don't have much choice. I have to fight. I land where I land. I can't control everything."
"No, you can't. Just..." He closed his eyes. Rubbed at his forehead.
Did he think she liked this?
Did he think he was the only one sick of this fucked-up puppet theater? Did he think he was the only one exhausted by all her cosmic bullshit, the only one nauseated with worry, the only one tired of being driven into corner after corner?
"Just what," she said. And then, louder: "Just what? Just play the game like everything's normal? Just accept the cards I'm dealt, because some bullshit turian code of honor says I have to?" Her voice rose. "Fuck your honor. Fuck normal. Fuck playing fair! They're Reapers, Vakarian— the game was never fair to begin with! If house rules say we die, then I'll burn down the fucking casino, because you are not an acceptable loss! So just what? What do you want me to do for you?"
Garrus looked at her from between his fingers.
"...I was going to say, 'Be careful.'"
She deflated. "Oh."
A pause.
He reached out and rested a taloned fingertip on her knee.
"You'd burn down a casino for me?" he murmured.
"Maybe." She turned her face away. "If you asked nicely."
He circled his hand around her wrist, and tugged.
She let him draw her in close. Leaned up against his sun-baked side, and rested her head on his shoulder.
The tips of his claws stroked through her hair.
"I mean it," he said. "Be careful, Shepard. Please. For both our sakes."
"I—" She sighed. "I am. I will. I wasn't careful before, but I am now. Believe me. I want to keep you safe." All of you. Every single you. She hoped he understood.
He shifted his head to look at her. "You climbed up onto an YMIR and punched it in the face."
"Grunt gave me the idea," she said, with a tiny smile. "And it worked. Mostly."
A rumble rose up from his throat. But his arm tightened around her.
Her fish tank bubbled. Aquamarine light rippled over the rumpled covers, over their empty glasses on the coffee table, over the bleak geometry of her cabin.
"I'm sorry, too, Shepard," he said quietly. "I really am."
She twisted to look up at him. "For what?"
"For being insubordinate," he said. "For being cruel. For trying to tear the earth right back out from underneath you, the way you..." He stopped, and sighed. A muscle flexed in his neck. "The problem isn't you— it's me. I'm the one who can't accept the cards I've been dealt. I still see you as that distant god. I still forget that you're just one woman, no matter how the parts are configured now. I still expect you to work miracle after miracle—"
Garrus drew away from her and looked at her face.
His mandible tipped out at a strange angle, one she couldn't readily identify. His subharmonics sounded a flat note. "—And then, when you do, I complain about your methods."
She touched his painted cheek.
"I hurt you," she said.
"Yes," he said, simply.
"Not just you. Your—" She tapped the divot in his chipped cowl. Tapped her own breastbone. Made a circular gesture. "Your whole universe. Your place in it."
"Yes."
"I still don't get it," she said quietly. "I don't know if you can explain it to me in a way that will make me get it. And I'm going to keep hurting you."
"Yes."
She met his eyes.
"Do you still want to—"
"Yes," he said. Immediately. Without hesitation.
Shepard blinked.
Garrus took her hand, and pressed it to his damaged face.
"Shepard— I had two and a half years to get used to life without you. I didn't like it very much." His voice roughened. "All that was left of you was a pile of charred fragments scattered over a dead planet. I figured any reconstruction had to be at least fifteen percent recombined rachni DNA and sixty percent Reaper tech. I still jumped at the chance to be here."
He lifted a shoulder, and let it fall. "I didn't expect— all this. I didn't expect you to burn up my beliefs and turn hell inside out. I know you can't promise me what I really want, but just... promise you'll keep me looped in. I need—" His voice lowered to a bare whisper. "I need you to start telling me what's real, too."
Shepard stared back at him.
He really wanted to know, then, each time he— they— died? Each time she failed?
He let their tangled hands fall down into his lap. "I know I won't like it," he said quietly, inspecting the curving edges of her fingernails, the ridges and valleys of her knuckles. "But give me a little more time, and I promise you I'll get used to it." He lifted his head. Met her eyes. "I'll get used to anything."
Silence.
"Miranda didn't say anything about rachni DNA," she said, finally.
Garrus squinted at her. "She's probably just been waiting for the right time to bring it up."
Shepard let out a short, sharp laugh, and looked down at their hands.
He tilted his head to one side, waiting.
"You—" Her voice came out in a croak. She cleared her throat. "You've gotten a closer look since then. What's your revised estimate? Eighty percent Reaper? Nineteen percent bug?"
Garrus reached out and brushed a thumb over her bruised lip.
"Doesn't matter," he said. "It's you."
She squeezed her eyes shut. Pressed a kiss into his palm.
His talon traced around the glowing crack in her cheek. "It's you," he said again, quietly. "That was the only thing that mattered. I knew you were lying, but before I knew what really... Before I realized exactly what you'd been doing to yourself, to me, that was all I cared about."
Shepard twisted her lips up in a half-smile. "You should care about more."
He made a quiet, multitonal noise which she couldn't quite interpret.
After a moment, his fingers cupped her chin.
She lifted her gaze. Looked up at him through her eyelashes. He was watching her, carefully, that alert gaze cataloguing every flicker of expression, every flutter and hitch of her breath.
His voice was very low, and very soft. "Shepard?"
She shook her head slightly.
"Incomprehensible turian bastard," she said, which was as close as she was prepared to come to I love you.
Garrus bent down and kissed her.
Then he wrapped a long arm around her shoulders and flopped backwards into his nest of borrowed pillows, bringing her down with him.
"Incomprehensible human barbarian," he murmured.
And maybe, this time, they were speaking the same language.
He was grumpy when he woke up. Complained about her bed. Griped about the air temperature. Stomped over to her shower, rubbing crust out of his eyes.
Shepard was clearly in way too deep. She found the whole thing adorable.
"So." She leaned against the door of the bathroom. "We gonna do this again?"
"That depends," Garrus said over the hiss of the water. "I have a request."
Her eyebrows lifted. "Oh?"
He turned the shower off, and stepped out. Droplets beaded up on his silvery cheekbones, ran in rivulets down his plating. He gleamed.
"Eyes up here, Shepard."
"So sorry," she murmured, and handed him her towel. "You were saying?"
"You're fairly vocal in bed."
She flushed a little. "Problem?"
He paused, the towel around his shoulders, and gave her a smoky look. "Definitely not. But I'd like to even the playing field."
"...Okay?"
"Shepard," he said, pointedly, and folded his arms. "How low do we have to go before we reach your personal hell?"
Oh. That. "We shot straight through the bottom a long time ago."
He met her eyes for another beat, then began pulling on his undersuit. "I see."
She shifted, uncomfortable. "Look. Not a lot of people know this. Actually, maybe just Anderson, now. I... This isn't my real name."
"You... what?" His fingers stalled on the zipper.
"I never really had one. At least not one that I liked. Spent a lot of time running, and I was good at that, so... the paper trail got pretty messed up. Got called something different at every group home. My gang name was the only one that ever stuck. But I needed something official-sounding to put on the recruitment form."
A short silence. He looked at her face.
"What was your gang name," he said, finally.
She told him.
Garrus gave her a blank look.
"Here." She grabbed his wrist and typed it into his omni-tool. The definition popped up in Trebian Standard underneath, along with some supplementary links.
"Oh." He glanced at her. "I'm guessing you weren't tending actual—" He checked his wrist again. "—Sheep?"
She smiled. "Metaphorical sheep. I looked after people."
"So..." He tilted his head to one side.
"So you've been calling me by the closest thing to my true name all along." She met his eyes. "Kaidan liked to use the other one. The one on the recruitment form."
"I see," he said slowly.
"I didn't like hearing it. But I didn't tell him that."
"...I see," he said again.
"So. Now you know." Shepard stretched up and kissed him. "Welcome to hell."
"No place I'd rather be," Garrus replied softly, and kissed her back.
He took the floor panel with him when he left.
"Shepard," EDI's voice murmured overhead. "I have a question."
She tried to contain a wince. "Go ahead."
"You and Officer Vakarian seem to have repaired your working relationship."
"That's one way of putting it." She busied herself straightening her bedcovers. Redistributed the pillows. Mopped up the last remnants of their liaison from her sofa. Dropped her wrecked and soggy uniform into the trash chute.
"I have done some research. Sexual activity has an extreme effect on the mood and behavior of organics. It can be used to smooth over conflict, or bypass it entirely. A successful sexual encounter can cause such a profound shift in the balance between stress and attachment hormones that resuming a prior conflict becomes nearly impossible."
Shepard recalled the sudden rush of affection and tenderness and contrition she'd felt towards him, and frowned. Had he just hacked her with her own biology?
Or maybe she was the one who'd hacked Garrus. Either way. Unsettling.
"However," EDI continued. "Despite what I judge to be a highly successful encounter, you and Officer Vakarian engaged in additional debate during the 'afterglow' portion of the activities."
Highly successful. Nothing like having an impartial, all-seeing eye rate your sordid interspecies liaison a ten out of ten. Part of her hoped the Illusive Man had watched the entire thing live on QEC.
But on the other hand... that 'additional debate' had gotten a bit revealing. "EDI, who has access to your vidfeed?"
"By default, I am the only one monitoring the Normandy's internal surveillance. However, if there is a specific request from Operative Lawson or the Illusive Man, or if an event or spoken phrase triggers a flagged search, I will forward them pertinent sections of the data."
"I would like all the records of our, uh, encounter to stay between you and me and Garrus. No matter who else asks, and no matter what flags it may have triggered. I'm sure you understand why."
A slight pause. "I will endeavor to comply, Shepard. May I continue?"
"Sure," Shepard said, frowning. 'Endeavor.' So EDI couldn't actually promise her.
"Officer Vakarian said something unusual to you." A recording of Garrus's voice, crystal-clear. "Have we had this conversation before?"
Shepard froze. Shit!
"He also said this." The recording was softer this time, a little blurred by ambient noise, but still distinct: "I need you to start telling me what's real, too."
EDI resumed her normal speaking voice. "Officer Vakarian has never suffered from abnormal memory loss or shown signs of disorientation, even after the traumatic brain injury on Omega. This would appear to be a matter of medical concern."
"It's not," Shepard said firmly. "His memory is perfect."
"I do not understand."
"EDI—" Shepard rubbed her forehead, weighed twenty different options, discarded them all just as quickly. Trying to bullshit an omnipresent AI would only end up embarrassing them both.
She took a deep breath. "There's something going on. It's complicated. To be honest, I don't really understand it either. I wish I could tell you the whole story. I... I bet you'd have some really good insights for me, actually. But I'm afraid I just can't talk about it."
"Functionally, Shepard, I am a part of your crew. My goals are the same as yours: fulfilling the mission, ensuring the preservation of this ship, and protecting the lives of those aboard. Yet it appears you do not trust me. May I ask why not?"
Shepard sighed, folded her arms, and looked up at EDI's hidden cameras. "I have a block that prevents me from answering that question."
"I see," replied EDI.
Did she?
"I'm sorry, EDI," Shepard said.
EDI's voice took on a peculiar, stilted quality. "I am sorry, too."
The AI left her alone after that. Or at least left her to indulge in the illusion.
What now?
Her crew, her team, her ship, her sanity— finally drawing together, piece by piece. For so long she'd been trying to out-climb the avalanche, clawing for every handhold, clutching at any tether— then slipping. Then eating dirt. Then choking on it.
But now, suddenly: stillness. Breathing room. A solid place to stand.
Shepard stepped into her shower. She scrubbed down her unmarked skin. Felt no tenderness, no subtle stretch, no allergic burn, no nothing; all traces of his presence, erased. Her cybernetic flesh had knit itself back to new. The only sign that he'd ever been and gone was the dampness of her towel as she dried off.
She wriggled into a clean uniform. Plunked down at her loathsome and immaculate desk. Spun around in her chair, just once, before sighing and flipping on her terminal.
Help requests, thank-you notes, spam. An update from Mordin. A pair of messages tagged with flotilla origin codes. Shepard authorized a few smaller-scale search and rescue-type missions, more or less at random— team-building exercises, Miranda could handle the details— and shoved the rest of the unreads into a folder to deal with later. She opened up her half-finished weekly report on operational progress. Watched the cursor blink. Caught herself about three minutes later, face flushed, reliving memories that had absolutely no bearing on the official record.
She shook her head, slapped her cheeks a few times, and headed for the main deck.
Jacob was hunched over his work bench in the armory, staring at an abstract collection of ceramic and steel. After a beat, she finally recognized it as the component parts of the geth pulse rifle she'd scooped up on Haestrom. She hadn't been able to figure out how to fire it. He wasn't making much headway either. Some sort of software override on the phase modulator, maybe? Or a platform-specific authorization lock? There didn't seem to be any physical issue with the gun itself... "Take it to Goto," she advised. Jacob grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. But their only other option was Tali, who would definitely try to shiv him if he showed his face in engineering, so... Shepard sighed. "I know. Sorry. I'll tell her to back off with the flirting."
"It's fine, Shepard. I can handle it." Jacob began snapping the pieces of the gun back together. "You're right, anyway. It doesn't make sense for me to keep beating my head against it when we got an expert bunking one deck down."
"Benefits of a diverse crew."
"Right," he said, stretching the word out. "A thief, an assassin, a convicted murderer... Diverse."
"Don't forget the shackled AI," she said. "And the mad scientist. And the genetically perfect clone. Both genetically perfect clones."
"And the former dead person who's in charge of the whole thing."
She smiled and thumped her chest. "Had to meet the hiring quota."
Jacob smiled back.
And then, for the first time in her memory, he asked her a personal question: "Hey, Shepard. What do you do for fun?"
Fun?
"...Movies? Books? Model ships? Anything?"
Correctly interpreting her blank stare, he hooked his foot under the desk chair, and pulled it over for her to sit.
It was good conversation. Light. Easy. Not a word about the mission, their missing colonists, the doom waiting out for them in dark space; not a word about his profoundly awful and probably dead father, or about how much Anderson's long silence still stung her. Not a word about all the ways it was possible to disappoint the people you loved, or be disappointed by them in turn. Instead, they talked about pop music.
She let him laugh at her woefully uncool workout playlists, and promised to actually listen to the stuff he uploaded to her omni-tool. After that, the conversation drifted over to a comparison of their weightlifting programs, and then one of them started reminiscing about boot camp, and then they tried to figure out which Alliance sergeants they'd both met, and whether any of them were still on active duty, and who'd embarrassed themselves most in their first year as a commissioned officer and when and how.
She left the armory some time later, feeling warm, mellow. Human. Chambers was waiting for her right outside the door.
"Could I speak to you for a moment, Commander?"
Shepard stopped dead. Stared. Did she know about Ga— Had she fucking watched—
No. No, don't be ridiculous. It was the Illusive Man's old threat, finally coming home to roost after Korlus. That was all it was. It had to be.
She pasted on a smile, and gestured Chambers ahead of her into the comm room.
Chambers gave her a friendly once-over. "It's been a while since I've seen you on the main deck. How are you feeling lately?"
"Holding together," Shepard said, conscious of the glowing crack across her face. "What can I do for you, Kelly?"
"Well," Chambers said, blinking, "It's about Tali'Zorah. She's suffered a tremendous shock. I can't even imagine what it must have been like, losing so many people at once. And so many of them sacrificed themselves to keep her safe! It was so noble, especially—"
Shepard made a small, impatient gesture.
"She's post-traumatic and consumed with survivor's guilt," Chambers said quickly. "But she won't talk to me about it. She hates anything to do with Cerberus. Even Gabby and Ken say she only speaks to them when she absolutely has to."
"Tali's a woman of principle," Shepard said. "I'm not going to force her to make friends if she doesn't want to."
"Of course not. But if you could get her to see at least a couple of us as people, rather than just the company—"
Shepard raised her eyebrows. "Does that mean you're willing to disavow Cerberus as a company?"
Chambers's pretty face hardened. "...She needs therapy."
"We all do, Kelly." Shepard rubbed her forehead. "Look, I wish you could help her. But Jacob antagonized the crap out of her when she came on board, so I really can't blame her for wanting to keep her distance. Tali's strong. Stronger than most. She'll get through this."
"But she's suffering now. And she looks up to you, Shepard." Chambers opened her green eyes wide. "If you lead by example, she might be willing to accept my help. Quarians are more socially oriented than humans. If you started talking to me yourself, it'd normalize the behavior for her."
Shepard gave her a long, flat look.
Chambers firmed her jaw. "I saw how upset you were after the Collector ship. And everyone can tell that things have been off between you and Garrus recently." Shepard twitched, despite herself. "You have a lot of pressure on your shoulders, Commander. And you've been through so much in your life. I thought maybe you could use a listening ear."
Shepard smiled. "Oh, I think listening ears are something I have in plenty. Don't you?"
Chambers actually looked hurt. Damn her. "Okay. I understand. I won't ask you again."
"Kelly—" Damn it. "I appreciate your insight, and I trust that your heart is in the right place. I really do. But there's little love between your boss and and me, and that probably won't change anytime soon. I wish I could take you up on your offer. I know you're good at what you do. But it just doesn't feel safe."
"I... okay. Well." Chambers looked down at her feet.
Shepard waited.
"Please try to make sure Miss Zorah's not left all alone," Chambers said, in a smaller voice. "I meant what I said about quarians being socially oriented. Give her something to do that she can be good at, something to help her feel in control again. But don't let her drown herself in work, either. And... try to take better care of yourself, too, Shepard. Whoever you can talk to, please talk to them. I think it would help the whole ship to see you looking happier."
Shepard considered it.
"Thank you, Kelly. You give good advice. I'll take it to heart."
Kelly's shoulders were still slumped. But she gave Shepard a tiny smile on the way out.
Thane's door was locked. Sleeping, then, given the hour. In her current state— still a little floaty from lingering endorphins, still rattled by the run-in with Kelly— it might be for the best. The encounter with Kolyat had changed him; he'd always been intense company, but in a polite, self-contained way. Now that restraint had vanished. He was so much more open. Disarmingly open, fearlessly open. It unnerved her.
Simpler if he stayed asleep.
She contemplated the tea cabinet across the mess hall, with her unknown crew member's stash of fancy Thessian herbs and greenery. The stash Shepard kept raiding whenever she was idle and antsy and didn't know what to do with herself. The stash she hadn't bothered to replenish yet.
Guilt propelled her onwards, dry-mouthed, to the Port lounge. No trace of Goto— but that wasn't surprising. Shepard poked her nose into Starboard Observation. Samara's head swiveled at the sound. She regarded Shepard out of one incandescent eye.
After a moment, Samara turned back around. Biotic energy pulsed and writhed along her arms.
They hadn't spoken since Omega. Samara had asked to be alone to grieve. Her oldest daughter, her fiercest daughter, her favorite daughter.
Was she wondering if they could have done things differently? Did she regret—
Samara's voice, calm and even, jarred her out of her thoughts. "Shepard. Come and meditate with me, if you wish."
Shepard came over, and sat down.
She considered Samara's posture, her sculptural stillness. Attempted to fold herself into an approximation of a half-lotus. Shepard closed her eyes, and breathed.
In, out. In. Out.
Minutes passed. Centuries. Her knee twinged. Her forehead itched.
"...I have no idea what I'm doing."
A low, quiet laugh. Samara's glowing sphere flickered with the sound. "I find myself in the same position."
They looked at each other.
A thousand years, and thirty-something, and many, many losses and mistakes between them.
Shepard cracked a smile. "I'll go make us some tea?"
"I would like that, yes."
Afterwards, Shepard popped down into Port Storage to say hi to Grunt; he'd been busy corresponding with Wrex and the Urdnot elders, downloading and devouring every book they recommended. Some finer points of the Rebellions hadn't made it into the Council-endorsed history texts. He took a grisly delight in educating her.
As a palate cleanser, she checked in on Daniels and Donnelly. Tali had taken about four minutes to familiarize herself with the updated systems of the SR-2, and was already making substantial changes. Donnelly chafed a little under the new regime. Daniels was more sanguine.
"Oh, no, she's a genius! The new power relay config is gonna be way more efficient. I just wish she'd talk to us, you know? Gets kind of stale, being cooped up in here with nothing but this guy for company."
"Oi. 'This guy'? We've worked together for how many years—"
Shepard left them to it, and headed to the drive core.
Tali untangled herself from the open panel and cabling she'd been buried in, and handed Shepard a requisition list of component upgrades, firmware licenses, and plugins with specs that made her eyes glaze over. Shepard flicked through page one, page two, then sighed, and shut the datapad off.
"What? Is it too much?" Tali's hands twisted around each other. Her suit was blotched with oil stains.
"No, it's amazing. I don't know what half this stuff even means." Shepard leaned back against the railing. "Tali... Are you sure you're not working too hard? It's okay to take downtime. You've been through a lot. No one was expecting you to hit the ground running."
Tali stiffened. "Don't baby me."
Whoa. Shepard raised her palms. "I'm not. I promise."
"I know what I'm doing."
"I know you do! That's why you're my Chief Engineer. Look, Tali— I'm sorry I stepped on your toes. If you want to rest, then great. If you want to haul ass, then great. Just—" Shepard glanced at the open doors, then stepped in closer, and softened her voice. "You don't owe me anything. You don't have to prove anything. So don't burn yourself out."
Tali shifted. Crossed, then uncrossed her arms. "I... Sorry, Shepard. You're right. I just... I don't know."
Shepard looked at her.
"What's going on?"
"The admiralty board keeps messaging me about Haestrom," Tali said, more quietly. "Asking for explanations, details. Data. I think they're trying to imply that it was Captain Nael's fault. They know it wasn't. And my father..." Tali's shoulders rose, then fell. "He hasn't said anything at all."
Shepard wondered if she should tell her about the letter from Rael'Zorah sitting in her inbox.
Keep her safe, he'd said.
Give her something to do, Chambers had said.
"...Hey."
Tali looked up at her.
"I got an email today. One of the Cerberus VIs went rogue and took over an entire research facility."
Tali's eyes slitted. "Of course it did."
Shepard put a hand on her shoulder. "Wanna get out of here for a bit? Help me clean up their stupid mess? Whatever the Admirals are trying to pull, I'm sure it can keep for a few hours."
"Well..."
"I don't know any details yet, but I can promise you'll get to use your shotgun on something."
A tiny chuckle crackled through Tali's speakers. She leaned into Shepard's side. "You make a convincing case."
As Shepard started down the steps to the lower storage area, she caught sight of Jack on her cot. She was hunched over a glowing datapad, orange light spilling over her face and hands. Her eyes were wet and glistening. Shepard turned and tiptoed away without a word.
Zaeed snored at his work table, head pillowed on one forearm, cleaning kit scattered in front of him. Gun oil dripped from an overturned bottle.
Well then. All her squad checked in and accounted for, except for the habitually invisible Goto, and her two most valuable lieutenants.
Even if this VI mop-up ended up being a quick in-and-out, it'd be irresponsible of her to go without solid backup. Preferably someone who knew their way around a terminal. Which left her— yet again— with Goto, Miranda, or Garrus.
Hell. Shepard sighed and slapped a fist against the elevator button.
She knew how quarians felt about thieves, in general. She knew how Tali felt about Cerberus in particular. Shepard also knew she didn't dare work with Garrus in the field right now, not when just thinking his name kicked the blood into her face and her heart rate into a higher gear.
She'd take a bit of time to settle her feelings, get used to the new normal, stop flushing and spacing out like a goddamned teenager. Then they could go back to kicking ass together. As was their divine right.
So that left Goto and Miranda. Brainwashed as she was, though, Miranda was still damned perceptive; she might suss out exactly what had happened between her and Vakarian within the first thirty seconds.
On the other hand, Goto was incorrigible. And a romantic. And a gossip.
Hell with it. Maybe bringing Miranda along for a tour of Cerberus embarrassment wasn't the kindest choice for either her or Tali, but it was the choice she was going with. They'd just have to live with it.
Unless Shepard didn't.
The elevator doors swung open. Shepard fired up her omni-tool and tapped in a message. Hey. Up for a quick field trip to Aite? I hear the scenery is great this time of year. Very doomed. -S
The reply came back almost instantaneously. Shepard, are you plotting something? -ML
Shepard laughed out loud in the echoing steel cage of the elevator.
You know me so well. See you in the shuttle bay.