CHAPTER 12

The Quarian

The elevator grumbled noisily while Garrus awkwardly rolled his head from side to side trying to work the kink out of his neck he got from helping James clean up his mess.

Thankfully, the damage to the shuttle from James' repair was minimal, and Adams was confident that they could still use it to power the cannons. Much to the annoyance of Cortez, who had just finished fixing his precious spacecraft, but he wasn't about to put up a fight if it meant finally getting off world.

After several attempts, Garrus finally got that satisfying pop in his neck he was looking for, and breathed a sigh of relief. The elevator eventually ceased its grumbling and opened up onto the Normandy's crew deck. As the door opened, Garrus politely made way for several other crewmen who were waiting for the elevator and stepped out.

Originally, Garrus had intended to search the upper decks for Tali, but judging how quickly, and somewhat angrily, Liara had fled the hangar after the accident, he figured the asari had taken that unenviable task upon herself. Although, Garrus couldn't help but wonder the wisdom of that decision.

Liara and Tali were often very professional around each other, and as far as he could tell, considered one another to be good friends. However, he did notice that they tended not to interact much, and there was sometimes an awkward tension between the two of them. Not that he didn't understand why. Hell, everyone on the ship understood. Even EDI to various degrees.

Garrus eyed the door to the crew quarters. His body ached and his eyelids were heavy with fatigue. Sleep these last few days had proven difficult to find, and he always hated sleeping on the human military issued cots in the crew quarters. A seductive thought subtly took root in his weary head.

The lounge doesn't get much traffic these days. And the furnishings there are infinitely more comfortable than the Normandy's actual beds.

The idea of sneaking a quick drink and lying down in the sensory pod for a short undisturbed nap filled Garrus' head with pleasant feelings, and he found his feet steadily dragging him toward the lounge area. But Garrus' peaceful bubble quickly burst as soon as the door swished open, and he was greeted with the sight of a purple and white quarian hood looking out onto an alien sunset through the open view port window.

Tali quickly looked behind her and caught a glimpse of her unexpected guest out of the corner of her visor.

"Garrus!" she nearly shouted in a noticeably drunken voice. "Come sit with me! You have got to see this view!"

Garrus froze. He quickly scanned the room, looking for any trace of Liara, only to realize that Tali had the lounge to herself.

Well… shit.

Thinking he was about to refuse her request, Tali raised what looked like a bottle of brandy with a straw sticking out of it and shook it around in the air in an attempt to entice the perplexed turian with the purple liquid. "Come on! I saved some for you. It's turian!"

"That's... good to know at least," Garrus shrugged, finally stepping out of the doorway and over to the couch.

He was in no position to turn down some good brandy if offered. Especially if it's some of the last palaven brandy in the universe. Letting out a tired sigh, Garrus sat down next to his friend, and took a good long look out the window that the quarian was so enamored with.

He had to admit, the view was quite pleasing. Watching the orange sun slowly dip down behind the vibrant emerald trees of this mysterious world somehow managed to put the tired turian at ease. The stress of the war and fixing the Normandy, for a few minutes at least, no longer bothered him.

No wonder Tali had sequestered herself up here.

Happy that her friend had joined her, Tali took one last sip of brandy through her straw and excitedly handed it over, accidently sloshing some of the purple liquid out as she did. Garrus tilted his head in thanks, took the bottle, and offered Tali her straw back.

"Here, I don't need your… What do you call it? Emergency induction port?" he teased with a slight smirk.

"It's a straw, Garrus," she corrected, playfully plucking the small tube from between his fingers.

Garrus grinned as he held up the bottle, eagerly inspecting its contents. Or more appropriately, what was left after Tali had had her way with it. His grin faded a little when he realized how much was already gone.

"I thought our wager was for a full bottle of brandy. Not half of one," said Garrus, casting the quarian an accusatory glance.

Tali laughed. "You said a bottle. You never specified how full."

Garrus snorted. "I'll remember that for next time." Unable to wait any longer, he brought the bottle to his lips and took a full swig of the seductive purple liquid. It burned on its way down, but he eagerly welcomed the comfortable warmth that followed it.

For a time, the two just sat there. Quietly enjoying their well earned rest and view, with Garrus taking occasional sips of brandy.

"What should we name this planet?" chirped Tali, drunkenly breaking the silence.

Garrus mulled the question in his head for a minute. The humans had already given the planet a name. It was more of a designation than a name really. A long sequence of numbers and letters until a true name can be given to it by proper channels. Some of the humans on the ship had taken to calling it Paradise due to much of the crew joking that they had actually all died in the battle, and that this planet was really the afterlife. Garrus seriously doubted that notion however, mainly due to the distinct lack of alcohol and seductive turian women. The thought, however, did give Garrus an idea.

"Sileria," he finally answered.

"Sileria?"

"Girl I knew on Palaven. Absolutely beautiful. A waist like none other, and a fringe like you wouldn't believe."

Tali couldn't help but let out a short laugh. "How well did you know this girl?" she asked in a sly voice.

"Not as well as I would've liked," he admitted, shaking his head sadly. "Met her during basic training. Right before we graduated I finally worked up the courage to approach her. But she made it pretty clear that the only person she had time for was her career. Even for a turian, she was a driven woman."

"Oh," said Tali, more than a little disappointed. "Any idea what happened to her?"

"She wound up an executor on the Citadel's Tayseri Ward. Caught her off duty once... on a date."

"Ouch," winced Tali. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We never would have worked anyway. Office scuttlebutt says she couldn't stand people who tended to bend the rules."

"If you had such a bad experience with her, then why name this planet after her?"

"Because," he said, taking another sip of brandy. "As beautiful as this place is, it just wouldn't work out."

Tali sat there for a moment, pondering Garrus' answer. "Well, I don't see what's so bad about this place," she said looking out to the vast undisturbed landscape spread before them. "I bet we could be happy here. And who knows? Some of those plants could be edible."

"Not for us," laughed Garrus. "The plants here are levo based, and the humans can't even eat it. James took a bite out of one of the leaves on a dare and nearly shit his pants."

Tali couldn't contain herself and broke out into a fit of laughter at the picture of James that Garrus had painted in her head. This brought a slight smile to the turian's scarred face.

At least that's something I can do for her.

"Of course it would be James!" she managed to squeak out between laughs.

"You should've seen him in action today. Somehow, he managed to drop a bulkhead down onto the shuttle Cortez had been working on. Set Cortez and our laser plan back a good three hours."

"Laser plan?" she asked after letting her laughter die down a bit. "That sounds fun. What is it?"

"Oh," blurted Garrus, seeing an opportunity. "Well… Since we can't get the drive core online, we need to get the shuttle in the air. But the hangar bay door is blocked. Adams figured we could use the thanix cannons as makeshift mining lasers and drill a hole to the hangar doors. We'll have to take the shuttle apart to do it, but Adams is optimistic."

Tali chuckled. "More likely you'll blow a hole right through the ship."

Once she was finished and settled back down into her usual relaxed position, Garrus turned his attention back to his drink. Quietly, he gazed down the neck of the brandy bottle and twirled it around a few times, gauging how much of it was left while trying to think of what to say next.

In C-sec, he took courses on conflict resolution and even some grief counseling, but during his years on the force he never found himself using it. He tended to solve conflicts his own way. Typically involving a rifle in some way, shape, or form. He dug down into the deepest recesses of his training but ended up just drawing blanks.

Shrugging in defeat, he took one last sip from his bottle and after a few seconds, Garrus stealthily took a deep breath and took the shot.

"I gotta say, I'm surprised to find you up here," he said as casually as possible.

"Where else would I be?"

"I usually find you hard at work down in engineering. Hard to picture you not in there, to be honest."

An awkward silence grew between the two of them as Tali waited to answer, giving Garrus the faint hope that he may have actually hit his mark.

"Adams has everything under control. I've done all I can," she said flatly. "There's no point."

Garrus turned and eyed her suspiciously. "No point? What about leaving? I figured you of all people would be eager to get back to your new home."

"The relays were destroyed…" Tali's typically melodious voice grew sour and her shoulders gradually slumped. "Rannoch is on the other side of the galaxy. It would take me 500 years even at FTL speed to get back. Again, there's no point. May as well just stay here. At least then I'd have a sky to look at."

Garrus frowned. He had forgotten about the relays. Unless they could be fixed, she was right, there wasn't much of a chance for Tali to see her ancestral homeworld again. But there was one thing he knew that she wanted that was still potentially within her reach.

"What about Earth? That's not too far away for us. I've heard it's got beautiful skies," he said, cautiously tip-toeing up to his next target.

Tali shrugged and groaned irritably. "I know where you are going with this Garrus. And I don't want to talk about it."

Garrus' mandibles twitched ever so slightly in defeat.

"So… I'm that obvious, huh?" he murmured.

"Painfully."

"Hmm. I guess subtlety's never really been one of my strong suits."

"It's not. Besides, I've seen a lot of vids like this. Trust me, I know what you were going to say, and I'm gonna save you the trouble of ruining this sunset. It's not going to work."

Garrus offered her a playful, yet, suspicious glance. "Is that so? Well… If I'm so unoriginal, why don't you go ahead and finish what I was going to say. Prove me wrong."

Tali rolled her head back, crossed her arms and let out an indignant sigh. "Fine. Let me know if I'm close. Repairs have hit a standstill, so you came up here to see if I can work on the drive core again. But you think I'm too broken up about Shepard to focus, so you were going to try to console me. Give me hope. To not give up and that 'Shepard might be alive out there, waiting for you." Tali scoffed, raising her hands to draw air quotes while attempting an unflattering impression of Garrus' voice.

"So Garrus... Am I close?"

Garrus didn't respond to her jab. He continued sitting quietly, studying Tali's body language for clues.

"There's no point, Garrus," she reiterated. "I've tried everything. I can't fix it. I can't fix the Normandy. I can't get back to Rannoch. I can't-"

Tali stopped herself when her voice wavered slightly. A wave of regret slowly washed over Garrus as his friend worked to compose herself. He knew it was coming, that this was something she needed to work through, but it still hurt to have to watch.

"I can't help anyone now," she said, trying her hardest to sound as calm and collected as possible, but the brandy in her system seemed to be making that task more and more difficult. "We all knew how this was going to end… Even Shepard knew."

"You're certain of that?" he said, pushing her further.

Tali threw up her hands in frustration. "Of course!" she spat. "You truly think otherwise?"

Garrus opened his mouth to speak, but this time Tali turned the tables and pressed him. "You know what, Garrus. It was rude of me to stop you. Go ahead. Humor me. Say what you wanted to say. Tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me that you think Shepard could still be alive. Tell me-"

"But I don't."

Garrus' words finally broke the spell the sunset had on the quarian and she looked over to him. The last glimmer of light from the sun had finally faded, setting below the alien horizon. The room darkened for a few seconds, only brightening up when the automated lighting in the room flickered to life in response to the sudden change.

"Shepard's survived a lot of things," he said, quietly. "Akuze, Sovereign, the Collector base. But this time… He ran headlong into the most dangerous place in the universe, already wounded, and with no back up. Even with his luck, I doubt he could walk away from that alive. And you're right… Even Shepard knew he wasn't coming back."

Garrus thought back to their time on Earth, when they had gathered at the rendezvous point in London just before their desperate push for the beam. Shepard had approached him while doing one final weapons check. Garrus had, at first, thought the commander wanted to discuss the next phase of the mission with him, but it became painfully clear that Shepard had really come to say goodbye. Neither of them wanted to admit it openly, but they both knew that there was more than a good chance at least one of them wasn't going to walk back out. And Shepard truly believed it was going to be himself.

"So, no," he said, "I don't think Shepard is alive."

He glanced back over to the quarian. She sat there frozen. Silent. He couldn't really see her eyes but he could somehow tell she was looking directly into his. He waited for a few seconds, to see if she would eventually respond. But when she didn't, he continued.

"But you know what else, Tali. For all your talk, I don't think you truly believe that. I think, deep down, there is a part of you that really does hope he's alive out there. That you want to repair the Normandy and go find him. But you won't… because you're scared. That's it, isn't it? You're scared that if you do make it back to Earth, you won't like what you find. You're scared... that I might actually be right. So, Tali… Am I close?"

Tali turned her attention back to the darkness outside the viewport and away from Garrus' piercing eyes. He kept his steely gaze fixed upon her, waiting for any kind of response or rebuke, but she gave him nothing. She just stared, unmoving, out into the growing night.

After several awkward minutes of silence, the lounge felt, for the first time he could recall, uncomfortable, and Garrus found himself feeling more spent now than he did when he first set foot inside. Gently setting the bottle back beside her, he pulled himself back to his feet.

"Can't say I blame you. Hell, I understand why you would even entertain the idea of staying. And well… I'm not sure I'd really want to find out either."

With that, he quietly walked back around the couch and towards the door back to the crew deck. He stopped briefly, reaching out a hand to open up the door, and as he did he took one last look over his shoulder toward his still motionless friend.

"Although..." he admitted solemnly. "I didn't really believe any of us would make it off Earth either. We all agreed to stop the Reapers. No matter the cost. And when that last reaper attacked, that's when I knew… this was it… this is as far as we go. But when that tank nearly crushed you… well... I've never seen Shepard turn around so quickly."

The control panel chirped at his touch, the door swished open, and Garrus stepped back out into the crew deck, leaving Tali to her view.

He stood there for a moment, going over everything he had said to her, wondering, hoping, if any of it might have helped her in some way. But the more he dwelled on it, the more the doubt took root and he found himself frowning.

Believing that he had wasted enough time already, Garrus slowly started making his way back toward his station at the forward battery. He stopped abruptly, however, as he passed by the memorial wall. He took in all the new names that they had added earlier, and settled on the one placed squarely above the other in the middle: Commander Shepard.

Every now and then, he used to catch Shepard staring at the wall, re-reading every name festooned upon it. Garrus, more than most, understood how heavily each of those names weighed down upon Shepard's shoulders. There were times, Garrus wondered, how many more names would make it to the wall before the war ended, and whether or not his name would be amongst them. But in truth, he never really imagined seeing Shepard's.

"I'm sorry, Shepard…" he whispered under his breath. "I tried."

Eventually, Garrus wound his way around the mess that was the crew deck and back to the forward battery. Without thinking, he reached out to activate the main console workstation, but groaned when he remembered that someone had ransacked it. He still didn't know for sure who did it, and none of the crew would tell him anything. But Garrus was patient, and he knew it was only a matter of time before he found his thief.

He walked over to the other side of the room where he had another, less useful, computer installed into the wall with a large holographic display. He started combing through its files, looking for anything that could be related to the Normandy's weapon systems. After several minutes of searching, he found what looked like a small set of schematics for the cannons that he had stored away some time ago.

But before he could properly study them, the door to the main battery swished open, and he heard a pair of boots stamp loudly on the ground behind him. Half expecting it to be Liara or Adams asking him what was taking him so long, he turned to face his guest but was greeted with sight of an angry quarian hovering only a inches away from him.

Garrus took a step back, his mandibles twitching in surprise. Tali's posture was... unusually aggressive, and he couldn't help but feel that behind that visor, she was staring daggers at him. Out of the corner of his vision, he could see Tali holding something solid in her hand, but he didn't dare break her stare to see what it was.

"I'm not scared," she hissed at him.

Garrus opened his mouth to speak, but before any words even had the chance to come out, Tali tossed what she was holding at him. He fumbled trying to catch it and it clattered noisily to the floor between them.

"And I'm going to prove you wrong." In a flash, the quarian turned on her heels and marched out of the room, the door swishing closed moments after she had already cleared the ruined hallway.

Garrus stared at the door absently for a minute, trying to wrap his tired mind around what had just happened.

Shaking his head, he carefully reached down to pick up the thin rectangular object Tali had thrown at him, but stopped short when he recognized what it was. Unconsciously, he put on a victorious and satisfied smirk as he took in the bold white lettering now staring him in the face.

Commander Shepard.