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The year was 2183, and a turian stood alone in the shuttle bay of an empty Alliance war ship, trying to say goodbye. He hadn’t really believed in spirits coming up, souls attached to ships and platoons and friends and mountains and the rings around planets, but he had felt the Spirit of the Normandy.
The shuttle bay seemed too empty without the Mako or Ash and Wrex. All three of them were currently somewhere on the Citadel, celebrating their decisive victory.
His things had been packed for hours, and everybody else was starting their well-earned shore leave but he couldn’t seem to make himself leave this ship. It had been two months, and he could say with absolute certainty that it would be the defining moment of his life. It was odd, knowing that as soon as he walked off that ship, he’d be done with the thing he would always be remembered for.
He told Shepard he would go back to C-Sec and do things right this time. He could honestly say he was excited at the prospect of a new-and-improved Garrus Vakarian, courtesy of Commander Shepard. He was going to show the galaxy the version of himself that she wanted him to be.
And he would.
As soon as he stepped off this ship.
Garrus sighed and sat down on the ground where the mako should be, and wondered why he couldn’t just make himself leave. It’s not like he would never be back. It’s not like he wasn’t going to see Shepard again- but he knew it wouldn’t be the same.
They had only just started getting along, and now she would be reduced to his old commander and long distance work friend. He didn’t want that. The best he could hope for is that he could work hard to become a spectre too, and in a few years they could team up again, and he could keep learning from her while they worked as partners. Equals.
All it would take is to ignore his own impulses, always second guess himself, listen to his superiors and always be right and he won’t have to worry anymore.
That’s all it would take.
As soon as he got off this ship.
He heard the elevator coming down and jumped. He thought everybody else had left, but the door opened to reveal Shepard, looking down at something in her hands, and there was something different about her when she believed she was unobserved. Whatever it was vanished the moment she glanced up and found Garrus. The casual glance somehow made the idea of leaving even harder.
“Hey, Vakarian.” She said, lazily smiling and putting down the datapad on the empty table that usually held their weapons and leaning against it, looking at him from across the empty shuttle bay.
He was still getting used to hearing her say his name with a smile.
“I’m glad you’re alright. Tali said there was a moment there when she and Ash were sure you were a goner.” He said earnestly. It must have been bad for that invulnerable immortal image she projected to be cast into doubt."
“I have a habit of proving people wrong.” She was being cocky, and she deserved it.
“That you do, Shepard.” he said affectionately.
For most of their voyage they hadn’t seen eye to eye. Most of their interactions boiling down to him saying something that he thought was innocuous, followed by a fifteen minute lecture where Shepard succinctly explained all the ways that he was wrong. That had been the story of his life up to that point- but for some reason Shepard was the first that actually got through to him. Instead of just saying he was wrong and to deal with it, she would tell him why, and why he should care. Nobody had ever taken the time to do that for him before. He liked who he got to be while she was in charge.
“You all set to get back to the real world? She asked, hoisting herself up to sit on the table, crossing her legs under her in that strange, alien way.
“I think so." He exhaled and looking at her all the way across the room, and he could tell that she knew it was a lie.
Garrus liked living in Shepard’s world. Sometimes he wondered if she knew how truly extraordinary her life was, if she knew that most people didn’t find another adventure every time they dropped down on an alien world. It seemed strange that she even existed in the same galaxy as all the people that sat at desks and drank kava and heard unbelievable stories about heroes like her and wondered how that person got to have adventures they could only see in a vid.
For the dozenth time today he wanted to ask her if he could stay. She’d probably let him, but most of him realized that if he wanted to prove himself to her, he couldn’t do it here. He wanted to come back and impress her, to have her look at him like an equal instead of a project.
“Was council...okay with everything that happened?” He tried to change the subject to get himself away from the temptation of staying.
“If you’re asking if I’m being tried for treason, then no. Apparently people let you get away with piracy if you save the galaxy.” There was an undercurrent of her voice that he didn’t quite recognize.
“Too bad that you’re not the type to take advantage of that hero status for more than discounts.” He said, and she laughed.
He realized he had never made her do that before, but recognized the sound so clearly from nearby conversations and closed doors. He didn’t feel like he was sitting across from his mentor right now, but instead like he had passed some secret test that moved him from mentee to actual friend.
“Savior of the Citadel and you probably filled out all the property damage forms, didn’t you?” He joked, and saw her look a bit sheepish.
“I...might have.” She admitted, slightly exaggerating her embarrassment for effect when she saw him laugh.
Funny. He didn’t know she was funny.
“I was kidding- did you really?” He asked, not even a little bit surprised.
“Nope. I did all of it. Didn’t even mind, after the week we’ve had.” She said with a grin, and he shook his head in disbelief. “Getting to just sit down at a real desk for a few hours to do something mindless without feeling like I was letting down the galaxy for taking too long was a nice change.”
“I didn’t realize you felt that way too.” He said, looking at her like each word made her more real.
“Of course I do- the boring stuff is a pain, but I still do it. It makes sure that everybody that needs to know what I did knows in a way they can understand. If I don’t do that then important information about our mission might not get to the right people, and then it would all have been for nothing.” She explained like it was that simple. Shepard had a habit of doing that, making it seem easy.
I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Commander was what he had told her before.
“I…I’m glad you stole the Normandy, though.” He said, wanting to get something off his chest. His voice wavered a little, almost worried that he would say something wrong and be demoted from new friend back to subordinate.
“That’s a popular opinion.”
“I mean-” he stopped, trying to figure out a way to say what he had been thinking. “I’m glad that you have a strong enough sense of judgement to know that you had to disobey a bad order. It makes me feel better about all that you’ve told me- like I know that everything you said was really you and not just the Alliance talking.” He said a bit awkwardly, hoping he hadn’t insulted her.
Shepard’s smile faltered a bit. She had meant everything she told him, but this was the first time that she was going to flat out lie. The realization had been coming together piece by piece since she sat in front of Anderson in Flux, unable to do what she had to do until she asked him for the order. At first he looked at her, disappointed, and she rushed to explain that she wasn’t trying to get out of any potential consequences, but she just needed to know for sure that somebody higher up the ladder needed her to do it. She hoped that hearing the order would be enough to stop her from questioning herself.
She had followed every command she had been given since joining the Alliance at 19. She reinvented herself from the teenage con artist that slept in a boardwalk stall to the Perfect Alliance Soldier. It had gotten her through the Skyllian Blitz and made her the first human spectre. Disobeying now after ten years meant something else. Like if this one order had been wrong, it threw all the others into question. Shepard didn’t know if she would’ve done it without Anderson’s word, and she worried that she wouldnt be able to see a bad order again. Would she know if she already had?
She had tried to bury that scrappy little girl that she used to be, but she was screaming in excitement when they shot through the Mu Relay. Shepard hated to think that anything that girl would’ve approved of was the right thing to do. That girl was gone, and all that was left was the scar across her nose.
“I haven’t thought about it that way before.” She lied.
“I’m sorry if that was-”
“No, no, no, it’s fine, it’s just...I’m not used to this. Disobeying.” She said honestly, and took a moment to gather herself back into the Commander.
“I do believe in everything I told you, Garrus. Some of it was straight from the Alliance, but if what I said had value to you, then it shouldn’t matter where it comes from.” Shepard said, almost like she was telling herself that too.
“I can’t exactly doubt your judgement after you saved the galaxy.” He said, and she gave him a relieved smile, and he was more than happy to put off more serious things for a little while longer.
They heard a beep, and Shepard looked at her omni tool.
“Damn, it’s later than I thought.” She said, hopping off the table and walking a bit closer, but not all the way. “I’m sorry, I gotta run. You’ll probably be gone by tomorrow, won’t you?” She said, looking genuinely sad.
“Yeah. The real world is calling. Can’t keep them on hold for too long.” He tried to joke, sure that she could hear him getting a bit choked up.
Garrus stood up and walked over to her, meeting her in the middle of the shuttle bay. Shepard stuck out her hand, and he shook it in the odd human gesture.
“It’s been an honor to serve with you, Commander. I hope I get to do it again someday.” He said, and he hoped that she could tell he meant it.
“I hope so too, Garrus. You’ve grown a lot since I met you and it’s been a pleasure to see it happen. You’re gonna do great things, I’m sure of it.” She said, and smiled. He felt something warm up inside of him, like he had never been so inspired to do better .
She walked away and got into the elevator
“Hey Shepard? I’m really glad that you’re the spectre I ran away with.”
He saw her smile just in time before the elevator door closed and he was once again alone in the shuttle bay, finally ready to say goodbye.
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The year was 2185, when a woman that died woke back up to see that the world had changed.
A sleek man in a space station a thousand lightyears away told her that they had rebuilt her from nothing and expected her loyalty for it. They had taken her to an empty Colony to show her the proof and she met face to face with an old friend to prove that she was real.
Janey Shepard wasn’t buying whatever it was they were selling. She was Alliance to her core. She grew up in a city with so much light pollution the closest she ever got to seeing the stars was when she rubbed her eyes too hard, but when things got too hot on Earth she marched up to the amusement park recruitment booth that offered prizes for pull ups and asked them to send her to space.
Her easy exit became a second chance. She cut off the long tangled red hair that had been bleached and dyed so many times it was crisp to the touch, greenish from washing out in the chlorine of the motel pool nearby and left it a mop of red curls. Still unruly, but manageable. She didn’t want to see that girl anymore when she looked in the mirror, though the scar across her nose made her impossible to forget. It served as a reminder to stay away from her old life, to follow the rules as they were given, to take her orders and understand that she didn’t always need to know why something needed to be done in order to do it. She had wasted her first 19 years, and she was determined to make up for them.
Shepard had lived for the Alliance, and she had died for them too.
Why did Cerberus have to bring her back and complicate things so much?
Shepard knew that her correspondence would be monitored, and planned to go to the Citadel to talk to Anderson and the Council as soon as she could to get everything sorted out. She had earned a little faith from them and she was sure that this time they would listen when she told them about the Collector threat.
Joker told her that they wouldn’t care, that as soon as she had died, they covered up everything she had stirred up. She didn’t believe him. Joker had been her closest friend but he must be lying to her. Cerberus must have gotten to him. Maybe they were both clones and they were just being used to test how different methods of psychological torment would affect the real, still alive Commander Shepard.
They had broken up their share of Cerberus projects back on the SR-1. She shuddered when she thought of that lab they used to make the perfect super soldier. Admiral Kahoku lying in a tank covered in track marks.Everybody heard about Akuze when it happened. She had known some people in that unit, and seeing what happened to them in that lab made her sick.
But they had succeeded, she supposed. Here she was, with skin that barely broke, able to lift six hundred more pounds, and biotic upgrades that were so strong she wouldn’t even have to rely on her tech anymore if she didn’t want to.
She was now their super soldier, and the lives of that unit were the price to bring her back. They had told her she was quite the investment.
She avoided Joker’s eyes after that- she didn’t want to see that guilt and sadness from something that looked like her best friend’s face until she knew what was going on. When she thought it, it sounded crazy- but her just being an elaborate AI that remembered what it felt like to die made more sense than the story of actual resurrection they were trying to feed her.
Sitting in front of her terminal in the low light of the monitor and the ridiculous fish tank, Shepard typed her name into the search bar. She didn't press enter, and quickly erased it. She wouldn’t put it past Cerberus to fake the results anyway.
But it seemed like telling Anderson would have to wait until they had a reason to go to the Citadel. She didn’t want to raise the suspicions of Miranda or the Joker-bot before the had to, half-certain that as soon as she did she’d be switched off and Shepard 3.0 would be pumped out of a fabricator.
She looked at the dossiers from The Illusive Man. She couldn’t believe he got away with calling himself that. Convict, War Lord, Master Thief, Mercenary, Professor, Vigilante. Apparently everybody had a flair for the dramatic. She wondered what her honorific would be. Savior of the Citadel was too long. Frankenstein's Monster for the 22nd Century seemed too wordy. Odd that the only one she ever seemed to get was Commander Goddamn Shepard, whatever that means.
None of them sounded like the kind of people she would associate with anymore. Professor sounded promising, and she figured she might as well start with him. Anything to prolong the time between now and the inevitable confrontation with the vigilante. She’d prefer the convicts and mercenaries- at least they were honest about their intentions.
Archangel sounded like the kind of person that wanted the life of an Omega gunslinger but convinced themselves they could do it with good intentions, as if adding more violence would do anything to quell the tide of crime in a place like that.
She only noticed after they were on route that Omega was a popular location, playing home to the Mercenary and Archangel as well. Shepard had been hoping they could get in and out quickly, but it seemed like she’d be spending a few days fighting through gangs and checking for pickpockets.
The ship docked, Shepard stepped onto Omega, and hated that it felt so familiar. It was ancient and in ill-repair, alight with neon and composed entirely of dark corners and suspicious alleys.
It looked different from Calcona in almost every way, but the relentless sunshine and persistent smell of ocean trash was just a superficial layer disguising a place just like this. It was the people that gave it away. Old, young, some intimidating, all afraid, all knowing that it would take a damn miracle to get them out of a place like this. She noticed a teenage girl sneaking through the shadows and clutching her backpack tightly. Shepard hoped she got home safe. She had been in that girl’s shoes before.
“Omega. What a pisshole.” Miranda said haughtily, stepping lightly in her tall black boots. Shepard had to agree, especially in contrast to her immaculately white outfit that stood out like a beacon. Shepard didn’t imagine it would keep it’s shine for long.
They went into Afterlife and met the Queen of Omega where she had given them her one royal decree: Don’t Fuck with Aria.
Janey didn’t like her. Power over protection, violence for its own sake.
Standing there in the neon lights she wondered what it would take to help these people. A doctor would be a start, a free shuttle service to the citadel, charity. She imagined anybody that stepped foot here must have that thought about it at least once. Maybe Archangel felt that way too, wanting to help but having nothing more to offer than any other thug. The professor had decided to try and heal them- a noble quest that she felt bad for interrupting to take his help for herself.
They started out of Afterlife, telling Miranda and Jacob that they would come back later when she saw a kid, no more than 16, ready to fight and throw himself into inescapable danger for 500 credits and a hero fantasy.
“Where do I sign up?” He said, and without a second thought Shepard turned around.
“You’re a little young to be a merc.”
“Hey- I’m old enough. And I just spent 50 credits on this thing and I wanna use it!” He said, holding up a pistol. The safety was off. Shepard grabbed it, disassembling it quickly to proving it was faulty.
“Get your money back.” She said grimly, but watched the boy go up the stairs, making sure nobody was going to send him back in.
“Can I help you?” The batarian recruiter said to her, and she turned around, sighing. No use prolonging the inevitable.
“We’d like to sign up.”
They wandered through the base where the mercs were all milling about. Shepard was keeping her cool, but inside she was itching, thinking about the kid she had sent away, and god knows how many were being mowed down by Archangel as they waited around for him to get tired.
When she joined them running across that bridge she had to duck behind the very limited cover and squeeze her eyes shut for no more than a second, trying to dispel images of sneakers beating pavement to lead away from people more important, the face of a friend that wasn’t fast enough. The thought lasted only a second- years of training kicking in to keep anything else out of her head until the fight was over, and she stuffed it down, fighting her way across the bridge, taking out the two people by the door. Every hireling she took out made her anger towards Archangel grow, forcing herself to remember that he might have good intentions, and that biotically throwing him off his own damn bridge the first chance she gets would be a bad idea.
“Archangel?” She said, trying to keep her voice even but hearing it shake with anger that would be unnoticeable to anybody that didn’t know her well. Archangel tensed for a moment at the sound, before continuing to cooly line up his shot, while holding up a finger in the intergalactic symbol for hold on.
He leaned back and turned to them, slowly taking off his helmet, and when she saw his face a pit formed where her stomach should be.
“Garrus Vakarian.” She said, with more distaste than ever.
“Commander Shepard.” He said, warmer than she had ever heard from him before.