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His father did not welcome him home so much as grudgingly acknowledge his return. It was more than Garrus expected; upon arriving back on the Citadel he had anticipated a period of chilly silence followed by strained cordiality and in those first few hours it seemed that his father was not going to disappoint. Garrus could not even bring himself to be surprised. In fact, it was with some small amount of relief that he cleared his messages without noting one that bore his father’s origin address.
His apartments, so long abandoned, had a stale feeling which – after a quick check to ensure that the air filters were functioning properly – he determined was all in his mind. That did not make it any easier to settle back in. The absence of the hum of Normandy’s engines was like an aural ache, a void to which his mind persisted in returning. Music may have helped, but something in him wanted to dwell and so he sat, staring at the wall and methodically sorting through his options.
The soft chime from his personal terminal startled him and it was with a sense of resignation that he keyed the message open. His father, requesting his presence that evening. More than he had expected, yet the lack of any word or phrase to convey feeling left him dreading the meeting. His father had always been distant, not unkind, but inaccessible, and to expect him to suddenly display emotion was foolish. It was the fault of his erstwhile companions; being surrounded by aliens who freely wore their feelings had opened up a whole new world of expression for the turian. To be confronted by his father’s brand of cool understatement so soon upon arriving home was startling to say the least.
Still, he keyed in an acceptance and sent it. There was no sense in delaying the inevitable.
***
“You’ll be applying for C-Sec again.”
They were not the first words out of the elder Vakarian’s mouth, but they may as well have been. Up to that point, the conversation had been primarily carried by Garrus. His father had listened to the account of his time with Shepard with cold patience, offering no sign of approval. That almost certainly boded ill, but Garrus disregarded the tacit disapproval and finished his tale. And then the question, the one he had been both expecting and dreading.
“Yes,” he said. “And after spending time with Shepard, I’ve been reconsidering becoming a Spectre.” There, the bomb was dropped, though if he expected his father to react with anything approaching surprise, he was destined for disappointment.
“Spectre’s are lawless,” his father said. It was clear from his tone that he considered this the end of the conversation. Garrus allowed the subject to drop, fully aware that there was no point arguing. His father despised even the suggestion of breaking the law; to conceive of his son becoming a Spectre was like a slap in the face. Nonetheless, he would pursue all of his options. Back in the sterile clutches of the Citadel, it would be so easy to slip back into the niche his father had carved out for him, all the old familiar resentments building up again. Just thinking about the miles of red tape, the regulations that allowed criminals to slip through the cracks, the very idea of it all made him feel claustrophobic.
“Maybe just C-Sec to start with,” Garrus said, the exact combination of words to mollify his father. They knew each other well enough that a renouncement of the Spectre program on Garrus’s part would have rung false, and so a promise not to pursue it at the moment was enough of a peace offering. It gave the elder Vakarian time to consider how he would block this newest ambition and it gave Garrus the space to make his own decisions. Not exactly ideal, but they had never enjoyed an ideal family dynamic.
Talk turned, then, to the Reaper threat and Garrus sat silent as his father parroted the party line, counting down the minutes until he could escape back to the silence of his own apartments.
***
There was a briefing on regulations after he was sworn in as a member of C-Sec and it was then that Garrus realized what a mistake he’d made. This wasn’t the life for him, chasing his own ass around instead of putting down criminals, a complaint that he heard echoed from his fellow C-Sec officers, though primarily the humans which made the entire affair a little more uncomfortable than it might otherwise have been. Had his time with Shepard ruined him? But no, he’d always felt this way. It was why he’d left in the first place. Surely.
He made tentative friends with some of the humans, who were not quite prepared to accept that a turian wished to be around them, but who gradually realized that he was not mocking them when he joined in their conversations. They found plenty to discuss, from the everyday griping about their jobs to the very real nature of the Reaper threat.
To Garrus’s disgust – but not his surprise – the Counsel was denying the possibility of a Reaper invasion. The attack which Shepard had thwarted had been downplayed in the news, almost to the point of total dismissal. Though his new friends were more interested in hearing about what it was like to be right there in the thick of it, by Commander Shepard’s side as she tore through the systems, Garrus used the stories to sway their opinions. He talked about the geth and the krogan, about Shepard’s fearlessness in the face of danger. He told them how she treated all of them, alien and human alike, as nothing more or less than members of her crew.
“It was an honor to serve with her,” he said quietly. The men nodded, some envious, some impressed.
“Love to meet her some day,” said one of the men. “She must be something else.” There was a gleam in the man’s eye that would have offended Garrus had he not known the human drive to sexually possess those they considered great in their culture. As it was, he was mildly disgusted to think of Shepard wasting her time with any of these men; they were good at their jobs, true, and they were honorable enough, but none of them shone quite brightly enough to be worthy of Shepard. It was none of his business, of course, and yet the thought persisted.
He was set a series of menial tasks during those first few weeks, undoubtedly to test his commitment to C-Sec. He performed them admirably, leaving his superiors nothing to correct. He put not a single talon out of line however much it frustrated him to do so, and by the time his trial period was up, there was already talk of promotion and his father was slightly less cold towards him, almost cordial in fact. Garrus suspected that if he ever found out that his son was spending the bulk of his downtime with a bunch of humans, discussing their disillusionment with C-Sec, he would not be half so pleased.
They sat in a bar, each buying a round in turn, and Garrus struggled to keep their names straight; humans tended to look the same to him, all fleshy faces and too many digits. The ones with tattoos were easier to keep separate. Garrus thought of them as akin to his own race’s clan markings and he mentally blessed any human that bothered to get one.
“Have you heard the latest?” murmured the human called Doge. He had a circular marking just above his wrist with a female name scrawled through it. His mate, perhaps, or his former mate. Humans, Garrus had noticed, were not particularly good at staying together.
“You mean the Council’s newest crap about the Reapers?” asked the one called Jacobs. “They’re saying it’s just a rumor now.” There was a murmur of outrage around the table which Garrus did not join in on. “Can you believe it? They’re claiming that the attack on the Citadel was just the geth, and that the Reaper involvement is nothing but fantasy.”
“Bastards,” declared King, who was the only human female in the company and thus was easily identified. “That’s why they sent Shepard out looking for more geth, so she wouldn’t be here to correct their crap.” Another angry murmur circled the table and King focused on him. She reminded him, sometimes, of Shepard in the way that her jaw would set when she felt particularly belligerent. “Doesn’t that piss you off? You were there, Vakarian, you know what really happened!”
And he nodded and sipped his drink and chose his words carefully because yes, he was furious at the Council’s refusal to acknowledge the threat that had literally hammered down their door, but these humans were so inclined towards rash action. He sympathized, of course. He, too, was more in the habit of leaping before he looked, but only when there was something to be gained by it. Only when it would actually result in change.
“They’re trying to keep the peace,” he said finally. “Trying to keep panic to a minimum.” King made a noise of disgust, which Garrus acknowledged with a bob of his head. “I know, I don’t agree either. They’re a bunch of cowards.”
“You seem awfully calm about it,” drawled one of the humans that Garrus could never keep straight, though he suspected the man’s name was Kirkman.
“Because I know that when Shepard comes back, she will actively disabuse them of their notions,” he answered, to an appreciative round of laughter, quickly followed by a toast to Shepard’s safe return.
***
Shepard did not make a safe return. Shepard did not return at all.
It was all over the Citadel, on everyone’s lips almost as soon as it happened. Garrus stayed in his rooms, failing to report for duty though no one came to fetch him. No one even tried to contact him all that morning, realizing perhaps that he was not fit to converse. His friends may have covered for him. His superior officer may have simply let his absence slide. He did not know, nor did he care to know.
Shepard was dead, killed while hunting down the geth.
After everything that they had been through together, it was the last thing that he’d expected, the only eventuality for which he had not planned. Among his sorrow crept threads of recrimination. He should have been there. Perhaps if there had been one more able body on the Normandy, one more pair of hands to assist. Guilt followed close after those thoughts; why should his presence make a difference? Did he think Shepard was unable to handle herself without him there at her shoulder?
No. No. But the thoughts persisted, those two hateful words turning over and over in his mind. What if? What if?
Liara contacted him an hour after the news reached the Citadel. He could tell by her face that she had prepared a speech, something comforting no doubt, a touching soliloquy to guide him through the darkness that gnawed its way through him. She opened her mouth, closed it. They stared at each other for a long time, saying nothing but passing their sorrow back and forth on each exhaled breath. There was nothing to say, no words that could encompass the deep emptiness that Shepard’s death left in both their worlds.
“Garrus,” she said finally, a soft breath. He bowed his head.
“Thank you,” he answered. He started to raise his hand, realized that he could not touch her and dropped it to rest against his leg again. Turians were not given to frivolous physical contact, but he wished for nothing but the press of another’s skin, a tangible comfort to counter the pain.
“Don’t give up hope,” she murmured, then signed off. Garrus, too mired in his own baffled hurt, did not think to wonder what she meant by that until far later.
***
King came to his apartments that night. It was clear that she had been drinking heavily and she stared up at him with liquid eyes. It was clear that she wanted to come in, to offer what comfort she could, but as much as he had wished the touch of Liara’s hand earlier he could not stomach the thought of it now.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “They didn’t think I should come, but I wanted to see if you were all right.”
“I am,” Garrus said. He was not. Detachment had grown inside him like a cancer. He had realized an hour ago that the only reason he had stayed at the Citadel, stayed with C-Sec, was because the thought of Shepard had sustained him. The thought of going back to work tomorrow, mired in regulation and unable to make a difference, was impossible to stomach.
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. They were silent a moment more, then he said without thinking, “You remind me of her a little.” King’s eyes filled with tears and he turned away from her. He waited until he heard her turn and leave before closing the door.
***
“I heard about Shepard,” his father said.
Garrus was surprised to hear his father mention her name. He had never particularly cared for Shepard, partly due to her status as a Spectre and partly because he, like many of Garrus’s race, was wary of humans. For him to bring her up was unprecedented. Garrus nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His sorrow had spent itself, leaving in its wake a resolve like he had never before known. He was as steel, hard and cold and unyielding.
“She died well,” Garrus said, meeting his father’s gaze. Challenging.
“She did,” his father agreed after a moment. “She saved her crew.” High praise, if indirect. Garrus accepted it for what it was. His father would never be able to express regret to him, or offer sympathy. Acknowledging Shepard’s willingness to put other lives before her own was as close as he would ever come to naming her honorable.
“She was important to me,” Garrus said. “She was a hero.” His father was silent a long moment, considering how to respond to that, and Garrus found it in himself to be blackly amused.
“I am sorry you lost your companion,” he said finally. Garrus inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“I’m quitting C-Sec,” he said. His father stared. “The decision is already made. I turned in my resignation this morning.” He rose, aware that if he did not leave now he would be thrown out. “I’m sorry to have disappointed you, Father.”
His father said nothing until he reached the door. Unable to resist, Garrus turned back, hoping perhaps for some sign of understanding. Instead, he saw his father, rigid as ever.
“Don’t think I’ll welcome you back a second time, Garrus,” he said softly. They stood, unresolved, staring at one another. If he renounced his decision, took back his resignation, this would be forgotten, dismissed as acting out. Garrus was sorely tempted in that moment; it would be easier to subsume himself in the turian ideal and give his life over to service. It was only a moment, though, and it passed with barely a spasm. As tempting as it may seem now, he would not turn away from his purpose.
“Goodbye, Father,” he said. The door closed in his face, and he left with a strangely light heart.
***
Departing the Citadel was like being born anew, and though the ship was a transport not nearly so sleek as the Normandy nevertheless it comforted him. Soon he would be on Omega, ready to undertake the impossible mission of bringing its criminal element to justice. He deserved a little peace before then, short-lived though it might be, and so he allowed himself to be lulled by the faint hum of the engines as his former life dwindled behind him until it was nothing more than another speck of light in the vastness of space.
***
An eternal fall to grace
Playing out in decaying space
Oh travel on
It won't be long
-Alain Johannes