#post-destroy

The doors to the commanding officer’s quarters locked and Garrus quickly took a seat in the small task chair at Shepard’s computer. A deep breath, eyes closed, and he connected the call. It was a nurse, or an aide of some sort, who confirmed his identity and carried the mobile vid device over to the hospital bed.

And there she was. Garrus’s heart raced, his mandibles clenched and his eyes searched over all he could see of Shepard. She looked pathetic in her blue hospital gown, cannula under her nose and who knows how many connections all over her body to any number of telemetry devices. Maybe even life support, ported directly into her cybernetics. Black circles under her eyes, hair thin and greasy from lack of proper bathing, but there she was.

And her eyes, her bright green eyes, they were… Blank. Just, blank.

Not lifeless, but soulless, that’s how he would describe the blank stare that Jane Shepard gave him. He saw no relief, no joy, nothing, when her eyes focussed on the screen put in front of her.

“Are you another doctor?” That alto which could be music to his auriculars was so shallow.

“I--” Garrus was interrupted by the nurse, no doubt due to the time lag. The human woman corrected her patient, ‘No, dear, this is a connection to the SSV Normandy. This is one of your shipmates.’

Shipmates, Garrus huffed in his mind.

“The Normandy?” Jane brought a hand to her lips, drawing a finger tip over them in thought. An IV or some other connection hung from the back of her hand, taped in place. She seemed in good care, if done a bit archaically. It was likely the best they could do, all things considered. “Captain Anderson’s new ship. You must be the turian envoy. Nihlus, was it?” Shepard smiled weakly. Diplomatic, even at her lowest.

His heart sank. A low hum escaped Garrus’ throat, inaudible over the call, but it washed over his body. Shock, sadness. It was hard to process what he had just heard, what Shepard-- Jane, his Jane-- had just said.

“No, no, I’m Garrus,” he spoke up after a pause, voice deflated. “Garrus Vakarian, I’m…” He watched Shepard’s eyes struggle to focus on the video. She was obviously tired, and didn’t seem particularly interested if for no reason other than fatigue. “I’m, yeah, just checking on you. Wanted to make sure you were alright.”

The Commander looked toward the nurse, every third or fourth word slurring, “I’ve got such a damn headache. Everyone keeps telling me my injuries happened on the Citadel, something heroic. I’ve never even been to the damn Citadel.” Her attention went back to Garrus, “Last thing I remember I was boarding a shuttle to rendezvous with Anderson, and now...” She weakly gestured at the room.

The turian nodded solemnly, eyes diverting from the screen to nothing in particular on Shepard’s desk. He listened to her slow speech, and it was painful. So painful. This was … this was hardly Shepard. A severe brain injury was the obvious culprit of this behavior and it absolutely was not a surprise considering events. To witness memory loss like this was shocking. It was one thing to expect it somewhere in the back of his mind, but it knocked the wind out of Garrus’s sales to see it first hand. Was it a ‘physical’ erasure caused by the injury? Was it post-traumatically induced?

Did he really want to know, or care? It was reality, plain and simple.

All that mattered right then was that he couldn’t find his words. The silence likely lasted little more than a handful of seconds, the hospital machines beeping away to fill the voice, but finally Shepard spoke up once more. “I guess I should ask… if I was injured this bad, how is everyone else? Where is the Captain?”

“Shepard…” Garrus instinctively responded, voice hushed. His tone was on the cusp of an incredulous laugh; this was … unbearable.

“That bad, huh?” The Commander tried to smirk, but yawned.

“Yeah,” he nodded in response, “It’s a long story and I don’t have much time on the vid call to really tell it. Shepard, I should... go. Give the crew an update on you.” He felt like a coward.

“Tell them not to kick too much ass without me. Obviously the Normandy’s maiden flight went off without a hitch if she’s got a crew waiting for me, uh…” She raised an eyebrow, as if searching for the word. Name, more like. “Soldier.”

“Garrus.”

“Garrus. Right.”

He ended the call and stood within the same motion. His name echoed back to him so colorlessly… it hurt. He shuddered as he paced across the room, the quarters he had commandeered after the crash-landing. No one protested, of course. They were family. They understood.

Now their matriarch was… Well, Garrus didn’t even know how to describe the short conversation, how to tell the crew that they were nothing more than acquaintances in her mind. Hell, she had no recollection of him… there was no way she was going to remember any of the non-Alliance crew.

Garrus sat on the edge, on Jane’s side, of the squat human bed. He had brought in a few ergonomic cushions for himself, but they were splayed out across the far side, spilling onto the floor. Three fingers rubbed across his face and over his cranial blades, eyes distant and glassy. He looked around the room, trying to compose himself; the squat couch and chairs, the emptied fish tank, the stack of cups and saucers left over from the past few days.

She was alive, she was safe, but…

His whole body shuddered once more, blue eyes closing and a hand covering his face. Subharmonics rumbled low, from head to toe, a collection of sounds at pitches and in tones that melded together in a mournful song. His emotions spilled over, out of his control, and he sobbed. It would have been absolutely useless, probably more harm than good, to tell her who she really was to him. Damnit. He wanted to tell her he loved her, he wanted to remind her of … of everything. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

A jerking, choking sob; Garrus had never been wracked with such agonizing grief before. With his mother there was closure through longanimity. With his crew on Omega there was closure through revenge. With watching Palaven burn there was closure through Shepard.

The Normandy found its way back to Earth four months after the war. The crew members came visiting in a trickle, not a flood like she'd expected. Her doctors probably kept them all from crashing in at once.

”You'd think that once you save the galaxy, you can get as many visitors at once as you want,” Shepard said. That was before she got her leg and her hair and the full hearing in her left ear back.

”Yeah,” Joker replied, voice thick and quiet, and when he started crying, Shepard couldn't stop herself either.

”My tearducts got damaged, too,” she explained it to Garrus later.

”Must have been a very thorough explosion,” Garrus replied, and then he went quiet. You never know what is too much, too bold, when you're talking to someone who's died twice, in a way. Shepard is over that, though. Or to be specific, she doesn't think about it. It's just tempting one of those headaches that feel like the vacuum she knows too well, dark and neverending and yet just in her own head.

In a funny way, it makes her feel more human and at the same time less existent. Like she could (should) break, float away, dissolve.

–

It's one of those days that she has no energy to walk, and she will just have to forgive herself for that. Her room is comfortable enough even if she's still not quite used to how soft her pillow is.

There's a polite knock before the door slides open and reveals Liara and Garrus standing there, shoulders set. They're not accustomed to the antiseptic hospital scent yet.

”Joker sent you something,” Liara says after she's hugged Shepard. She still touches her as if she was glass, and maybe she is. Fire has a way of changing people, and the burn scars on Shepard's skin go deep.

”Oh yeah?” Shepard's curious, she can admit that. Liara's carrying a basket of all things in the crook of her arm, carefully like a newborn baby. ”What is it?”

”I'm still sure he was joking,” Garrus mutters, throws a suspicious look at the basket before looking away again. Liara shrugs, smiles, adjusts the basket.

”It's apparently a... delicacy among your people,” she says matter-of-factly, voice going up in the end of the sentence like asking a question. ”Ice-cream?”

Shepard laughs for the first time in two weeks three days thirteen hours, a burst that rattles her ribs. ”No way.”

Liara smiles again, digging a small caramel ice-cream box from the basket. ”I'm afraid it might have melted a little on the way here.” She sets it gingerly on Shepard's covers and rubs her hands together, not noticing she's doing it. Her blue fingers look chilly.

”I hope you brought spoons.” Shepard's already peeling the box open. It's cold, colder than she remembered, but cold feels good for a change.

Liara pulls out two spoons. Garrus tilts his head and sits on the edge of Shepard's bed.

”I can't eat it anyway, it's not dextro-amino,” he says when Shepard looks at him, ”and to be honest, I wouldn't even want to after Joker told me how it's made.”

So he's still not over the milking cows thing. Shepard shrugs.

”More for us, then.”

”Don't worry, I'm here just for the show,” Garrus says, but his fingers that brush against Shepard's arm are gentle, even if she doesn't quite feel them yet through the scar tissue. Doesn't matter. The sentiment feels good, too.

”Joker said it's, and I quote, 'a crappy brand', but he thought you might still like it,” Liara says tentatively as Shepard digs in. She's twirling her own spoon between her fingers, and Shepard gets the feeling she doesn't quite trust the humanity's taste in desserts either.

”He's not coming himself?” Shepard asks between spoonfuls. The first one almost makes her eyes water, the cold kicking her in the back of the throat like a bullet, but she adjusts, like she always does.

”No, he said he was busy looking over the reconstruction plan of the AI core but that he would visit tomorrow,” Liara replies. There’s guilt she doesn’t need to feel in her voice.

”You want a taste?” Shepard offers. Liara hesitates, shares a look with Garrus, and Shepard gets the feeling there's a bet she doesn't know about.

”Why not?” Liara says, carefully scoops up a spoonful and, to her credit, only shivers a little when she gets the ice-cream in her mouth. Turians don't smile, but Shepard thinks Garrus is grinning on the inside.

”Do you like it?” Shepard asks, and there's laughter in her voice even though she's genuinely curious.

”It's... cold,” Liara replies.

Shepard smiles. ”That's obvious.”

”And sweet. I like it,” Liara admits after a moment. Garrus looks incredulous.

”Want to share?” Shepard offers. Liara doesn't even try to hide her smile.

Garrus shakes his head, and Shepard leans against his shoulder. He's sharp, but she's learned by now the nooks and crannies of his body, where to lean and just relax. ”You're just jealous because you can't have any.”

He turned in the chair to face the holographic projection of former news anchor, Eliza Cassan. "Isn't the pot calling the kettle black, at this point, Miss Cassan. Besides, I have to finish writing this, before everything all collapses in on itself." He cracked his knuckles and stretched his arms out, straightening his back, before turning back to the desk.

In truth, Francis Pritchard had changed over the twenty five years since the fall of Panchaea. With all the charisma of a stick, he figured it was best to stay to himself after being given the pink slip with hundreds of other employees at Sarif Industries. He'd aged more, but it was quite apparent that it was still him. His eyes had a few more wrinkles, frown lines were deeper, his hair had faded from jet black to a dark grey tone, and he now had a pair of glasses perched on his nose.

However, his fingers were surprisingly still nimble and his tongue still sharp. Various odd-jobs from legal to illegal had kept him financially secure and thanks to an almost hermit-like lifestyle and other factors, he had avoided the Grey Death.

"You've been writing that since 2030. I know you have finished it at least twice now, Francis." She tilted her head in confusion and walked over to the desk, standing behind the chair. "What are you doing now?"

He shook his head. "Editing it, Eliza. With information you've told me, things I dropped out because I was scared to admit them or explain, with everything that I seemed to have glossed over. Someone needs to write it, and not just those old conspiracy novels that kept popping up in the first years following it." 

"Is it almost finished, then?" She asked, letting her hands appear to be on the back of the chair, but in fact holding them right above it so the hologram did not flicker out.

"Maybe. Did you hear any news on the net recently? Last time I checked, they were abuzz with stories of that 'international terrorist.'" He mimed air quotes when he describes the man the news talked about.

She shook her head. "Nothing new. I have been keeping track of him as well as I can, but something is preventing me from doing so. Another AI, called Daedalus, I believe."

He rolled his eyes at the mention of the mythical greek character. "Is it a wonder how names just seem to travel up through the past again. That reminds me, I need to finish that part on Darrow."

His fingers glide across the keys as Eliza hovered over him. This was how he survived so long mostly isolated. Eliza Cassan had requested his help so many years ago to survive, and so she had stayed around and assisted him in his research and writing.

He had to tell the world about what Jensen had done for the world, what Faridah had done, what everyone involved in the entire story had done. From the most awful things to the small victories. What he never knew was pieced together from old records with Eliza's help, like the Belltower ships, Netanya Keitner, Tiffany Kavanagh, and other things.

"You haven't included much on you, I see." Eliza noted as she took over the machine to read the manuscript. "Just a little on some interactions and when you asked Adam for help with David Sarif."

"I'm not important. Never was, at least, not in this. Just a footnote." He sighed and leaned back. "Their story, Eliza, is important."

She stepped back from the chair. "You survived it all. That is important. I am also certain Adam would not have done what he had done without you."

He scoffed. "Yeah, we wouldn't of had that hole in our security."

Eliza paced around the desk. "You may consider your contributions minor and non existent, but they were not. You were and still are a capable hacker." She gave him a faint, almost nonexistent smile. 

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going to bed, honestly." He muttered, saving the file and shutting the monitor down before standing up. "Good night, Eliza."