Chapter Text
Aratoht wasn't an easy choice, to state the obvious.
Not that any these days were, and even considering the hell she went through on Mindoir before joining the Alliance, she couldn't hold three hundred thousand people accountable for what batarian raiders had done to her family. Had done to her.
It didn't matter what her worst impulses tried to elicit; she wouldn't bite or give in to them.
Shepard dwelt endlessly on that choice over the last five months since it all happened, no end in sight and no ability to contact her crew, to contact Garrus, or get any new intel on how long they had until the Reapers showed up. The galaxy was already on borrowed time and Shepard was paying interest on that loan.
When once her nightmares were only about Reapers, about Mindoir, about Saren pulling the trigger on himself even after she tried to save him, they now held a cacophony of screams as the mass relay exploded and extinguished hundreds of thousands of lives. She couldn’t prepare them, couldn’t warn them, couldn’t evacuate anyone.
She never heard the screams on her own, but her mind as always filled in the blanks for her.
Because of course it did.
"Rec time?" Vega's voice came over her cell’s intercom. While she wasn't technically in prison, only relieved from active duty and under constant surveillance, 'cell' was the only real word to describe the four walls Alliance brass held her in at HQ.
Pulling her from her self-destructive musings, she got up and nabbed a water bottle and the N7 hoodie she'd draped over the back of a chair in the room. Vega unlocked the door to let her out, noticing the dark circles framing her eyes.
"Shit, Commander," he said. "You look like hell."
"Nice to see you too," she retorted. "And I told you not to call me that anymore."
"Sorry, Lola," he replied. "Old habits."
She knew he respected her a great deal, but right now any reminders of her rank or where she should be right now, grated on her nerves. She should be out there, forging alliances and helping the galaxy prepare for the impending invasion that spelled doom for them all, and not locked away, cut off from her people as if she were some animal to be caged. She bought them some time by cutting the Reapers off, but it wasn’t a commodity she was confident they had a lot of.
They walked out to the open grounds at Alliance HQ, and as much as Shepard loved to grief Vega, she looked forward to this rec time each day. Truth be told she was getting softer than she wanted to be, and while an hour of daily outdoors time did not a hardened soldier make, she was grateful for the time. If anything, it pulled her out of the grating thoughts that flitted through her consciousness during the other 23 hours.
Plus, she had a soft spot for one James Vega, insufferable ass that he was. He'd become a good ally, a friendly face. He was someone she looked forward to spending time with and when she finally got out of this place, she'd probably ask him to join the crew. The Normandy was already full of insufferable asses, what was one more?
Thinking of the Normandy made her wonder if she’d ever see it again.
They started a leisurely walk around the track, amicable silence between the two as the cool of the morning dissipated under the Vancouver sun. Vega was the first to break the spell.
"You seem distracted, Lola."
"I am," Shepard replied. "You might be too if you had a crew somewhere out there, someone special you missed."
"Who's to say I don't?" he asked, almost defensively. "I don't really want to be here either, Lola. But it was me or some other jarhead. Most of them see you as a criminal. I don't. So I took the job."
"And why aren't I a criminal, Vega? Enlighten me."
"I was with one of those blue beauties a while back," he started, "friends first, it became something more. She worked with your friend Liara for a while, Prothean research back at uni. You mighta thought the Reaper threat was some big Spectre secret, but it wasn't. I believed her. Then when I heard about the call you had to make, Aratoht? We’re on borrowed time, Comma- Lola."
"You're a good man to have on our side, Vega." Shepard slinked back into her thoughts. "You still talk to her?"
"I don't really want to talk about it." Shepard made a mental note to get him to open up at some point.
"Do you miss her?" She prodded at him again.
"I do," he said. "And I also really don't want to talk about it."
She defensively raised her hands, palms out as if to say ‘sor-ryy’ and left it at that.
"Who’s your someone special?" he asked, changing the subject to her.
“I don't really want to talk about it." Shepard’s words dripped of mock indignation, sarcasm, and something else.
Vega mirrored with his own hands her defensive reflex from before and Shepard softened.
Maybe talking about it would help.
"After I dropped the squad at the Citadel before coming here, he said he was grabbing the next ship to Palaven to help the Hierarchy get their shit together, Reapers on the way and all."
"Palaven, eh?" He asked, "turian?"
“He is.” Her admission didn’t seem to leave Vega with any sense of surprise.
“The blue one?”
Shepard barked out a laugh at that, realizing how obvious it probably was even if they didn’t advertise their relationship. “Yeah, it’s him,” she confirmed. “Miss him every day. He was one of the only people who didn’t doubt me after Cerberus brought me back, including myself.”
“Always wondered if there was more to the dynamic duo than the news vids let on.” Rather than seeming disgusted, Vega left it at that, a far cry from the usual reactions she got when other Alliance soldiers or officials found out. “He helped track down Saren, right? Battle of the Citadel? When, you know, a literal Reaper fell on you? I’m no genius at reading their facial expressions, Lola, ‘specially on a news vid, but he had a look when you came charging out from under that thing.”
He whistled as if to say hot damn.
Shepard thought back on that day fondly, despite the costs. It was the day her friendship with Garrus turned into something more, both finally brave enough after all they’d gone through together. After they hijacked the Normandy from being grounded, after the Conduit, after Saren, after the Council returned to the Citadel from the Ascension, the crew met at Purgatory to celebrate. They’d done the hard work and reconstruction was not in their forte (quite the opposite, as Shepard had a habit of leaving utter chaos in her wake – Citadel Tower, case and point).
The look Garrus gave her that day came back tenfold that night, after drinks upon drinks lowered their inhibitions and they were not planning the next mission, not waiting for the next thing to go wrong, not bracing for impact with the next barrier – finally free to tell each other how they both felt without the added distraction getting in the way of the mission at hand.
Garrus told her that he didn’t want to be just another Kaidan or Liara fawning over her. Shepard had enough of dealing with that, and he didn’t want to be one more person she had to turn down. Little did he know, he was the one person she wanted that kind of attention from. The only thing that stopped her from making a move was the notion that he would want something closer to home. Funny enough, that was one of the reasons he provided in turn.
They were both idiots, and they didn’t realize it until that night at the bar after several rounds and, through her emergency induction port, Tali repeatedly calling them bosh’tets through drunken slurs.
Vega and Shepard walked over to a small, outdoor weightlifting setup. “Spot me?” she asked. Vega nodded in ascent, ambling behind the bench as Shepard picked her weights, sliding them over the bar and laying down on the bench.
Beginning her reps, Shepard started grunting out her counts – not feeling nearly as confident in her benching ability as she had five months ago. She was still strong, to be sure, but it felt like it took a lot more effort than it once had, even considering the cybernetics coursing through her form, just under the skin.
“…four…five…six” she counted as she pressed. Seeming to sense her struggle, Vega spoke unprompted in a kind effort to distract her from the burn in her arms.
“Never thought I’d try out the azure,” he said, still focused on Shepard but making amiable conversation, opening up a little more to her. “And that wasn’t the why of it anyway,” he explained.
Shepard closed her eyes tight as she continued her repetitions. James’ distraction working a bit, she glanced up at him, eyes telling him she was listening.
“She was … cerebral, to say the least,” he continued. “But even beyond that, and how unique the whole melding experience was, I appreciated her because she challenged me.”
Shepard immediately understood what he meant. Her relationship with Garrus wasn’t a fetish, wasn’t a taboo. It was a partnership, forged in battle, that endured and made them both better people.
“Fourteen…fifteen,” Shepard ground out before slotting the barbell back in place. She grabbed some antibacterial wipes to clean up the bench and bar before she and Vega traded places. He added another set of impossibly heavy weights to the bar before assuming Shepard’s earlier position. She rolled her eyes at him.
“Hey Lola, just because you’ve gotten soft doesn’t mean we all have,” he said, teasing.
“Uh huh,” she said, smirk playing across her countenance. A long pause drifted between them before Shepard broke the silence again. “Yeah, my alien called me on my shit too,” she started. “I always wanted to try and save everyone, you know? I think the Alliance kind of beats that into you. Sometimes, people aren’t worth saving. And you can’t always expect justice to work itself out.”
“How do you mean?” he asked, grunting through his repetitions.
She thought hard on a good example, knowing the same idealism probably sat with Vega to a certain extent.
“A few years back, while we were chasing leads on Saren,” she started, “Garrus would tell me all these stories about C-Sec, the red tape getting in the way of keeping criminals behind bars. There was one that just, really got to me. This salarian doctor, Saleon, was using live people – human, turian, asari, you name it – to grow organs to sell. Then, if something was wrong with the organs, rather than removing them from the test subjects, he’d just leave them there and let their bodies reject them, letting them rot and die from the failing body parts he was trying to grow.”
“Christ, Lola,” he said. “Morbid much?”
“Kind of my point,” she resumed her story. “Garrus was leading the investigation into this guy, the trail of bodies wasn’t just that. You know, he had chased down murderers, rapists, drug dealers. This was something else entirely. It was an absolute horror show, as he told it.”
“So Garrus knew who he was, what happened when he tried to apprehend him?” Vega asked, invested now.
“Saleon hopped a ship off the Citadel with his tail between his legs,” she answered. “They had the ship identified and everything, but they overrode Garrus’ order to shoot it down. Too close to the Citadel, too high a risk for casualties.”
“So they just let him go? Did they send any kind of strike team off after ‘em?” Vega was still bench-pressing, seemingly not struggling at all as Shepard had to maintain an active conversation during the exertion. She felt mildly jealous that it wasn’t the case for her anymore – she’d have the chance to show him up someday, she thought idly.
“They did, but after miles of red tape to get the apprehension order approved,” she said. “By that time, he’d made it as far away from Citadel space as he could go, changed his name and everything.”
“So how’d you end up finding him?” he asked, a minor pause and followed up. “You did find him, right?”
“We did,” she confirmed. “Garrus had been chasing leads in his downtime, found a ship that matched specs and tracking signatures. Had a new name, so did the doctor. But we found him.”
“And?” he asked, finally a sheen of sweat across his face amid heavier breathing.
“We went after him,” she said, matter of fact. “But I wasn’t sure what to do when we got there. I mean, I wanted the guy brought to justice as much as anyone. But did he deserve to die? I didn’t know. Do we get to play god when it suits us? Do we not? Where’s the line?”
Shepard paused for a beat, reflecting on that internal conflict as the Normandy docked the MSV Fedele and she rallied her team. She decided, in that moment, to let Garrus decide how to handle it. This was his charge, his missed target. It was the least she could have done for him after seeing how much it hurt him when he told the story about all the boundaries C-Set had put up, preventing justice and how many people this Saleon had been allowed to hurt because of it.
She broke out of her silent musings again to continue. “He changed his name to ‘Dr. Heart’, sick fuck. When we boarded the ship, it was crawling with his failed test subjects. One of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen. And the smell. Putrefaction, gangrene, rot… I still get that memory, just the utter stench of death on that ship.”
“I say again, Lola. Morbid much?” He just shook his head at her, signaling for her to continue as he put the barbell back and sat up, grabbing a towel to wipe his brow before the thin droplets of sweat fell to his eyes.
“There was no saving the test subjects,” Shepard resumed. “So we put them out of their misery and found Saleon cowering in one of the labs. In that moment, seeing the utter cowardice on his face? Yeah… I knew he deserved to die. Then and there. He’d gotten away once. Risking the justice system to let it happen again wasn’t worth it. So after assessing the damage, I looked over to Garrus and said ‘do your worst.’ And he capped him, right between the eyes.”
“So I get you both wanting to take him down,” Vega said. “But how did that challenge you?”
“Well,” she paused, gathering her thoughts. “I knew then that we had a lot to learn from each other. That brand of justice doesn’t apply to every situation. But sometimes? Sometimes it’s just better to stop them in their tracks. If he’d managed to slip away again, we both knew he was fully capable of finding a new identity and doing the same damn things. He also seemed seriously connected, so who knows what kinds of strings he could pull to get out. It just… wasn’t worth the risk. Before that, I probably would have called the brass to take him in. I decided then, that it wasn’t worth the trouble. We ended his path of destruction that day. And it probably wouldn’t have happened without me at least trying to see things Garrus’ way.”
“I guess I see what you mean,” Vega affirmed. “Can’t say I’ve been up against something similar, but it sounds like the right call from this angle.”
“And it wasn’t the last time we had to make tough calls like that,” she said. “There were times that I wanted to go in, guns blazing, and he helped hold back some of my baser instincts. We kept each other in check, never letting the idealism get the better of us, nor the bloodlust for that matter.”
“I think everyone kinda needs that,” Vega said, reflecting on a fond memory of his own if his expression said anything. “What I need right now, though, is a shower. Rec time’s over.” His tone was almost regretful; they’d finally started chipping away at each other’s shells a bit.
They walked back toward HQ, sipping from their water bottles as they walked. Vega escorted her back to her cell so she could grab a shower of her own. “Same time tomorrow?” He asked, already knowing her answer.
“I’ll be here,” she said, the same reply she gave him each day, nodding at him in farewell as he shut the door and left her again, alone with her thoughts.
She walked over to the spartan bathroom in her cell, turning on the water to let it heat up as she deposited her hoodie and water bottle at the table and chairs. Sweat had her shirt clinging to her form and she was glad to be rid of it. Steam billowing from the shower, she stripped the rest of the way down and walked in to let the water pour over her. In a previous life, it would have been too hot, but her skin could take the heat now, as it were.
It was an upgrade she wasn’t entirely mad about.
Shepard rubbed the bar soap across her loofah, smoothing it over her to cleanse today’s workout away. As she finished, though, she leaned against her forearm on the shower wall and choked out a near silent sob she didn’t know she’d been holding in.
“Goddamnit, Garrus,” she quietly said to herself, eyes closed, breathing heavy in her chest as the heat from the water made the air feel like it was coagulating around her, holding her in place. “I hope you’re okay.”
Miles and miles of thoughts raced through her mind in that moment, as they always did when she thought about him. Then when she grabbed her shampoo to start working it through her hair, she imagined talons against her scalp in place of her hands.
Then she bit back a cry once more, longing for a touch that wouldn’t come.