Work Text:
Garrus was standing on Shepard’s six, or more like five because he was peeking above her shoulder. They had run around the whole day, the mission a complete disaster. He wasn't sure anymore if his trust in her had been justified. She wasn't herself, fidgeting, missed half her targets. Horizon was the first ground mission she took him to, she seemed like her old self on the ship, too concerned for him to accompany her. He still refused to call it Normandy, it wasn't the same.
Maybe this whole Cerberus-ordeal had changed her. He also refused to call it her death.
Mordin was standing to his right, tapping away on his Omnitool and murmuring quietly, oblivious on what was on display in front of them. They finally found Kaidan,after hours of running their heels off and Shepard panicking he simply walked out of some prefab unit and straight into Shepard’s arms.
Garrus had liked Kaidan, he was a nice, understanding man, calm, considering and quiet – and he had made her happy. Though now Garrus' opinion about the marine was changing. The creases on Shepards face that vanished upon Kaidans embrace had come back tenfold, the nervousness was gone, replaced by tension. They were yelling at each other. He hadn't considered Kaidan capable of yelling... and he was mean, Garrus hadn't thought the man could say something like that. His arm was rising on it's own behalf, his hand itching to reach for her shoulder but Kaidan had stormed off, Shepard stumbling half a step after him before the defeat in her posture reached her feet. She turned and went back to the LZ, already calling for a pickup.
They were standing in the airlock, waiting for the decontamination process to finish, Mordin still scanning, babbling and looking at his omnitool, Shepard hanging her head and Garrus staring holes in her back. Miranda was awaiting them in the CIC and Mordin was already bursting with enthusiasm
"Mission successful – antidote working, must run tests on surviving colonists"
Shepard stopped for a moment, listening to Mordin but shook her head and went on towards the armory. Garrus leaned his rifle against the doorframe, not trusting the Cerberus operative with it's maintainance. They handed the rest of their gear to Jacob who went over to the workbenches.
Shepard now back in uniform was leaning on a table a deep sigh slumping over her shoulders and running her hands through her face.
His hand was itching again to reach out, here, nearly alone he let it rest on her shoulder
"You ok?"
She let her hand fall back to her sides, stretching the skin of her face to an enormous degree, he was afraid she might rip her skin off or open those glowing stripes ... scars or whatever.
"actually... no" She was silent for a moment, sighing again
"This is hard enough for me to figure out for myself, you know? I feel like it's been a week – but it wasn't, it was two damned years. And it's not like I didn't ask myself if I'm real, maybe he was right?"
"No, he wasn't. He was mean and he wanted to hurt you"
"Kaidan? He'd always been reasonable"
"And he'd always been Alliance, he seemed to have issues with you ...using what Cerberus gave you"
"I can't believe that's true, that we were together because I was Alliance, because we were on the same site and that he didn't love me for my personality..."
"Maybe he changed, we all changed, Shepard"
"maybe… but you know… Kaidan told me about this instructor back when he was in training, merc, not a nice guy by what Kaidan told me about him – but he didn't seem to hate him, told me he's ok with aliens, that they're people just like humans. Even someone who treated him that bad he didn’t hat or generalize about"
"We had issues with your crew and us aliens aboard back then – did you consider he told you that because it's what you wanted to hear?"
She looked up at him "No, but maybe you're right...he must have known about what I said to Ashley. Shit."
Great. Instead of comforting her, he had accomplished making her even more sad.
"I always thought he was different, not saying this just to get into my pants, but maybe I was wrong and he had a girl on every station and catcalling every pair of boobs walking by" She grimaced, the contortion of her features accompanied by a dark chuckle.
"Wait, what?"
"I just realized I'm stupid" His hand on her arm tightened, he lifted it to scratch his fringe
"No, what did you say about animals calling for you?"
She chuckled, earnest this time "Catcalling? Don't tell me there's no translation to that"
"Uh, not a good one it seems..."
"It's a form of sexual harassment, when person A says something to person B – in most cases they don't know each other – often times it's some sexual innuendo ... ah, well I'm shit at explaining this..." She paused, thinking
"you worked with Harkin, didn't you? He did that, and I have the feeling he didn't just call me a stripper and whore and offered me payment for a lapdance – guess he did that with other women too? That's catcalling."
"He... what?" Garrus voice grew loud in annoyance, drawing Jacob to their conversation
"Garrus, dont tell me you never heard of this?" Jacobs eyebrows rose towards his hirline "Were you hiding under a rock? There are a lot of people thinking it will get them somewhere, it literally happens all the time" He pointed towards Shepard
"There was this recruitment guy on omega, when we tried to get into one of the merc gangs to get you out..."
"I ... uhm... I thought..." Garrus was hearing himself babbling, while trying to control his fists clenching at his sides.
She stood up "Come on, I need a shower before we go into debriefing"
***
Garrus fingers flew over the the holo-keyboard while he's contemplating on what to do. He felt better, Shepard has taken him on most of the missions she went on and she seems to be herself again. A few days ago Shepard brought back Tali to the Normandy and there it is, with Shepard, Tali, Joker and Chakwas there it feels like a fracture of the spirit of the old Normandy is back.
The console started blinking and beeping and Garrus had to stop thinking about old times to get his algorythms straight. When it's done it isn't better than it was before and he feels he has to decide what he wants to do, thinking or calibrating. Deciding on the former he shuts the console down and leaves the battery. He gets tea for himself and and an additional cup of coffee for Joker, because Joker seems to run on caffeine and heads for the CIC. It seems that was a bad plan because the moment he left the elevator he ran into Kelly.
"Hello Garrus, how are you doing?" she asks in her annoying squeeky voice”
"Um, good"
"Dr. Chakwas says you missed your appointment again, would you please go see her?"
"sure" he tries to walk past her but she stops him with her hand held up
she frowns "I know you don't want to talk to me, but you know, whatever it is, I will listen and I can keep a secret"
"actually, there's something ... you talk to Shepard too, don't you?"
"Yes, that's my job"
"We met Kaidan, and they ... had a thing back then ... I'm a bit worried about her – did she talk to you about him?"
"I don't think she would want me to tell you if she had, but no, she said she didn't want to talk about about it." He wanted to interrupt her but she held her hand up, gesturing for him to wait "I can tell you this much: she seems to have recovered, from what I see she's more calm and sure in her decisions"
"ok... good. Uhm, I'll go now" gesturing with Jokers cooling coffee he walked towards the cockpit.
"Don't forget to check in to the medbay!" Kelly called a little too loud after him
***
Heaving a long sigh he stood in front of the medbay collecting himself. After a few seconds he palmed the door control to look into Dr. Chakwas surprised features lifting up from her desk.
"Garrus?"
"I'm here for my checkup"
"a day late but who am I to complain?"
She gestured for one of the steelframed beds. Garrus sat down and Dr. Chakwas started peeling off the bandages.
"I guess you know what happened on Horizon?" Garrus started his interrogation
"the colonists? The collectors?"
"ah... Kaidan"
"Yes, I heard about that too, but I don't get to read reports and I have enough work for me to occupy my time. He's got promoted to Major?"
"He's got promoted to ass, if you ask me" Garrus flinched, he didn't intend to say that out loud
"I wanted to talk to you about him, he behaved ... not nice. Shepard said she guessed him wrong, she said he maybe was like that from the beginning, though not to her"
"he was definitely smitten" the Doctor grinned "and yes, right from the start. And there was awe and hero worship too, he was too afraid of her records to hit on her like he might have on another woman." She started prodding at his neck "Could you take the yoke of your armor off?"
He opened the straps and lifted the shoulder and carapace guard over his head "Did Kaidan call other women whores? Or asked them for a lapdance?"
"What? No? Why should he?" she flinched and ripped off a bit of bandage
"ow"
"Sorry, you got me distracted"
"Shepard said that's how human males approach females"
"Ugh, no it's not, thats harassment, that's meant to hurt. There are a lot of ways men would approach a woman they want to ... court. But degrading her isn't one of them. Kaidan wouldn't do that, maybe he's changed but I can't imagine him ever doing something like that" She had finished rewrapping his carapace and went on to tape his mandible back to his jaw while Garrus was contemplating about what he had heard. He reassembled his armor.
"As much as I appreciate not having to run after you for your checkup, I would like you to come here regularly and not only when you need advice in wooing a certain someone – regular checkups might help minimize scarring which might help things" and the crooked grin was back on her face.
***
The cowards of bodyguards back out towards the door, leaving the volus alone. Garrus contemplates shooting them but a sideways glance to Shepard tells him she decided to let them go. He has to suppress laughter when he sees her rolling her eyes in annoyance when the volus tells them Fade is a former C-Sec agent named Harkin. The laughter dies when he realizes why she's annoyed of the bastard.
When they arrive at the factory, they see Harkin 'Fade' but he runs and leaves them behind a big window with some Blue Sun mercs.
They fight their way through what feels like hundrets of mercs and mechs and Garrus grows more and more anticipated - he can smell the stale odor of Harkin and has to stop himself from running head over heals into open fire.
Garrus can't complain about the man’s choice to finally leave C-Sec and turn to the mercs, but it buggers him that there has to be a contact in C-Sec who's helping Harkin.
He realises the bastard has activated two YMIR mechs when they walk into them dropping from behind some cargo containers, the left one goes down easy enough with a few shots from Shepards shotgun in close quarters after he has stripped their shields. Unfortunatedly it explodes next to Shepard who's knocked back by the blast. After a short shock-moment his heart stutters beating again when she stands back up only to pull him down behind a crate. He feels the heat of the rocket missing his head and the right side of his face throbbing in mock pain at the memory. Lucky for them the mech can't step over crates so they are able to wait for their shields to recharge and take it down.
They advance up the platforms that rise up to a second story-balcony until bullets pelt off their shields and they have to take cover.
“two o’clock, 7 meters up” he props his Mantis while hearing Shepard’s suppressing fire at another mech. He shoots both and follows Shepard who took point leading them into a small office, containing a desk and Harkin leaning out of a window, the balding man is startled by Shepards approach and turns to run. He grabs him and slams him into the wall – effectively stopping his escape. Caged between Shepard and his body blocking the door Harkin stands, fidgeting nervously.
“You helped a criminal disappear, gave him a new identity – a turian named Lantar Sidonis”
Harkin stares at him for a moment – Garrus can actually see the moment the coin drops “Tell me where he is and what his new identity is”
“Do you think I tell every madman chasing after my clients my business secrets?”
“No, you will tell ME”
“I don’t think so – that’s bad for business”
Garrus grabs him, lifts him up by the front of his shirt and throws him to the ground, pinning him by his throat with a booted foot. Slowly he increases the pressure
“You know what’s bad for business? Dying!”
“Okay” wheezes Harkin and scrambles back to standing. He walks over to the desk and calls Sidonis, eying Shepard who gave up her position leaning against the desk and is now standing right beside Harkin, her pistol drawn should he decide to make the wrong call. Harkin arranges a meeting with Sidonis and approaches the door to leave in mock nonchalance.
“Not so fast” Garrus draws his pistol. Towering over the older man his eyes fall on Shepard, who looks at him curiously.
His attention snaps back to Harkin, he lowers his pistol and pulls the trigger, a round hitting the man in the crotch and he crumples to the floor.
Shepard grins at him “You can read my mind.”
He bows down towards Harkin “If you lied or set us up we will come back and finish the job”
She walks over to the medigel dispenser, grabs a packet and throws it at Harkin
She turns back to Garrus and pats his arm “Come on, let’s revenge your team. Thanks, by the way”
He can’t help the pleased smile when he looks down at her.