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omniblades-and-stars · 5 months

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Tipping Point

Got Your Six: Part 4

“I want to activate the Project.”

"Warning: Activating the Project will result in an estimated three hundred and five thousand casualties. Do you wish to continue?"

Fuck, this can't be the only way, can it? I can't do this.

Even as she was thinking that she couldn't, she pressed the big, red button. It was a decision she could not undo, and the cost had been so high as to be nigh unfathomable. How can you measure the costs when the whole universe is at stake? What kind of person does something like this?

War criminal.

Terrorist.

… Hero?

Commander Shepard didn't know anymore. Who was she to make the call to destroy a mass relay? She wasn't actually even a commander in the Alliance military anymore, everyone just kept on calling her that. It felt like a cruel joke. Everything had been taken from her, even her core identity. Helen was a shadow of who she used to be. She felt like a walking parody.

Only, parodies didn't kill masses of innocents, did they?

You're not supposed to come back from dying. I should have just stayed dead.

Her thoughts had been growing darker and darker the closer her team drew to going through the Omega-4 Relay. Guilt gnawed at her bones with teeth like wolves. It was a constant itch, just in the spot between her shoulder blades that she couldn't reach to scratch.

I deserve whatever is coming to me.

This isn't who I am!

It wasn't, right?

"Liara, now!" Shepard shouted, and her biotic friend sent a dining table crashing into Tela Vasir, and freeing the woman she was holding hostage. The Commander was relieved that her bluff had not needed to be tested. Would she have shot a hostage to stop the Spectre agent?

The fact that she was not certain that she wouldn't was deeply alarming, and she didn't want to find out the answer. So much had already changed for her, since her resurrection. Helen did not want even more confirmation that she could never go back to how she was before her death.

And definitely not the kind of woman who would harm a hostage to reach her goals.

Confident.

Principled.

Just.

Merciful.

Not the kind of woman who would destroy an entire star system …

What is happening to me? Who am I? I wasn't like this before.

Thoughts were already tearing her up in a storm.

The Spectre didn't give her enough time to contemplate the matter. There was no room for ruminating on the nature of death, the consequences of being brought back from the hereafter, or if that was even why Shepard felt the cracks forming around her personality. Tela Vasir began to glow a vibrant, neon blue and Commander Shepard did the same, disappearing in a second and reappearing down clear on the other end of the hotel patio.

"I'm going to end you, Vasir!" Commander Shepard shouted as she sent forth a ground-shaking shockwave that went barreling into the asari agent, knocking her backwards. She was so fucking angry at the woman, for setting off a bomb and harming innocents, for threatening Liara's life … for mirroring Shepard's own very recent behavior.

The fight was tough. Actually, tough was an understatement. Tela was an insanely powerful biotic soldier, and she had back up from the Shadow Broker's agents. She gave as good as she got, but she didn't have what Shepard did: Liara T'Soni, now brimming with power, confidence and a hard edge that Helen felt was all too familiar, and Tali'Zorah, who could hack just about anything and bring an enemy down using only her omni-tool and a paperclip. The battle turned quickly, and Commander Shepard's squad pressed their advantage until they had the boastful Spectre agent cornered and dying.

Even as she bled out, Tela Vasir managed to argue with Shepard about her methods. The asari Spectre had blown up an entire building to get information! She was working with the Shadow Broker, who was working for the Collectors, who were working for the Reapers and were harvesting humans with the goal to take all of Earth.

Tela Vasir was bad, and Commander Shepard was good, right?

Fuck! I don't know.

“Besides, you’re with Cerberus. You have any idea what your terrorist friends have done?” Vasir’s question sent a spike straight through the Commander’s core. It tore away the thin veil she so carefully crafted to hide away all of her doubts, her fear … her anger.

“I know who they are and what they’ve done. It doesn’t matter.” The words sounded hollow, meaningless even as Helen said them. She was lying; it did matter. Shepard cared so much about what Cerberus had done, and was almost certainly still doing, that it kept her awake at night. Gave her ulcers. Kept her from eating. She agonized about it constantly. The Illusive Man's constant refrain about old operations and rogue agents was about as true and comforting as her own lie. Not at all.

“I think it does. You want to judge me? Look in the mirror. Kidnapping kids for biotic death camps! Hell, your own unit on Akuze! And you’re with them. Don't you dare judge me! Don't … you … dare." Vasir's dying accusations whipped around inside her mind, ricocheting like dangerous little bullets. They pulled at the fraying threads of doubt with spidering fingers. The ride back to the docking bay was one spent in stony silence as Shepard replayed those words over and over again.

The guilt and self-hatred sank its gnarled claws into her lungs. "You're no better than her," it whispered in her ear. "No, you're much worse," the voice told her, words slithering through the grooves in her mind, spreading and taking root like an invasive weed. It sounded like her own voice, but darker, seductive. It laid a shadow of gloom over her thoughts, and simultaneously ignited the fury that she was barely keeping at bay. “It would have been better for the galaxy if you’d stayed dead.”

Maybe the voice was right.

I shouldn't be alive.

He barely noticed the EDI node activate behind him as he recalibrated the forward gun battery's firing algorithm. Helen recently installed the Thanix Cannon upgrade, and now it needed to be readjusted.

And readjusted again.

And again.

He definitely was not checking and rechecking the calibrations to deal with his mounting anxiety about the suicide mission, and his plans with Helen before they head through the Omega-4 Relay into the dark unknown beyond it. They were going to get the Reaper IFF after they helped T’Soni, and who wouldn’t worry about getting on a derelict Reaper?

No, it was simply very important that the gun battery was working well beyond standard operating parameters.

"Garrus, Commander Shepard has returned to the Normandy," the AI chimed suddenly, breaking Garrus' concentration with a start.

"Thanks, EDI," Garrus intoned without looking up from his console. He would give Helen some time to get herself together, or drop by his little hidey-hole on her own. He just liked to know when she made it back aboard. He wouldn't be a very good boyfriend if he didn't worry about her, even if she was by far the most capable person he had ever met, human or otherwise. And he was including himself in that calculation.

But still, he did worry. A lot.

"Garrus, there is a problem, you are needed in the cargo bay," EDI continued, its synthetic feminine voice sounding worried.

Shit.

"What happened? Get Dr. Chakwas, I'm on my way!" He turned rapidly and made for the door.

The strange globe of light that served as EDI's interface pulsated, "I apologize, I have not made myself clear. The problem is Commander Shepard. Tali'Zorah asked me to send you to the cargo bay. She said you would know what to do."

"Shit! I'll be right down."

"Yeah, you better walk fast lover boy, before she puts a hole in my baby," Joker added over the intercom. The door to the gun battery was already closing behind Garrus before the pilot finished his sentence. He ran through the mess hall to the elevator, nearly knocking Thane to his ass in his mad rush.

"Sorry, Krios, no time to explain!" He apologized vaguely as the elevator door slid shut. It always seemed like the elevator took forever, but now it felt like an eternity. Imagining what in the galaxy Helen was doing in the cargo bay that required his intervention only made the ride stretch on into infinity. What happened on Illium? The last update he received was that he needed to be ready to drop in several hours.

It's happening again. I need to get there faster. Should have crawled through the maintenance shaft.

The last week or two had been very stressful for Helen, he knew. First, there was that whole mess with Zaeed. Garrus had seen Shepard angry before, but her response to the man's absolute disregard for the lives of innocent blue collar workers had been incandescent. It was the first time she'd ever cold-clocked a squadmate in anger (he was not counting the time on the SR-1 where she swung at him, she never actually punched him). He had been certain that she was going to put a bullet in the man's other eye at the end of it. Her pistol was right there, so close, the barrel was almost touching the mercenary’s skin. But instead, she offered Zaeed a hand and pulled him from the wreckage, effectively zipping up her anger into a neat little pocket, somewhere nice and deep where it would fester.

Then there was the business in the Bahak system. Or what was left of it anyhow. How a personal favor for Admiral Hackett turned into something the batarians were calling a war crime (and maybe rightly so) was far beyond him. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of her decisions there, and she had made them alone, with no input from her friends or any back up whatsoever. And now she was going to have to stand trial in front of the Alliance for it.

She's already given too much of herself. And now they want to take what's left.

How kind of them to let her finish her extremely deadly mission to save humanity before they hauled her away.

Helen was not sleeping again, he found her more and more often sitting on the observation deck drinking too much coffee and staring into the endless expanse of stars during the night cycle. She was falling apart, and they were so close to being ready to go through the relay and destroy the Collectors. If Commander Shepard couldn't handle the strain of it, there was literally no one else in the galaxy who could.

Before the elevator even came to a complete stop, Garrus could hear the sound of something enormous crashing into the bulkhead. The door slid open to reveal a massacre of storage crates, cargo straps, loose pieces of Cerberus armor, and a few standard issue Avenger assault rifles scattered across the deck. Commander Shepard would never let her ship look like this.

Except that Commander Shepard was the one who wreaked this particular havoc, was still wreaking actually. She was standing dead center of the cargo deck, bathed in violet energy so intense it had pulled her hair free, it floated up around her as if she were underwater. She was wreathed by a glowing halo of her own power. It was terrible and it was beautiful all the same.

Oh, shit.

He was just about to call her name when she lifted another crate into the air, the same purple blue glow around her glowed around the large box. "Who am I?" she screamed as she hefted the crate into the wall she was facing. It crashed with incredible violence, the sturdy metal of the crate crumpled against the hull with a terrible scraping sound.

"Helen," Garrus started quietly, taking a tentative step toward her. This was far beyond the last time she tipped over the edge. "You're Helen." His heart rate increased, she was going to hurt herself, was already hurting herself. He was afraid for her.

She turned to face him, bright electric light flashed and played over her skin, almost like she was covered in a strange azure fire. Helen's nose was bleeding, her eyes were bloodshot, and tears streamed down her cheeks. "Commander Helen Shepard died! How can I be her?" She shouted and sent a shockwave rocking across the deck, away from Garrus. Detritus went scattering and crashing out as the intense and loud waves of energy pulsed down the cargo bay. Fresh blood dribbled down to her lips.

"I don't know how it works, Commander. But you are Helen," he moved in closer, he was only a few feet away now, but he knew she wouldn't hurt him.

Please hear me, Helen.

Shepard lifted one of the assault rifles with her biotics and crumpled it into a ball, "Would the real Commander Shepard join Cerberus? Knowing what they did to Admiral Kahoku, what they did to her unit? To Toombs?" The sad little gun ball fell to the ground at her feet, and she threw a blast into the side of the Kodiak. It fizzled out against the side of the shuttle transport without damaging it. Which was good, because they needed that thing in just a few hours. She was getting tired. "Would Helen have doomed an entire fucking colony to die because of fucking visions? She was a hero! I can't be her, I'm a goddamned terrorist! A fucking lunatic!"

I have to do something. She's going to have a hemorrhage!

In his panic to subdue her, Garrus did something that was probably very inadvisable, and wrapped his arms around her. He could feel the power roiling just over his hide, prickling and hot. It fucking hurt. "You're Helen," he began again, pulling her in close, "and I know that you wouldn't have done any of those things unless you knew there was no other way. The scale of this is too big. There were always going to be casualties. Sometimes, all of the choices are the wrong one."

Something seemed to break through, finally. Helen blinked, the biotic power around her fluctuated. "The dead aren't supposed to come back," she cried out and pressed her forehead against his armored chest. The light around her went out very suddenly, the painful needles playing on Garrus' skin faded away. Her voice cracked, and her hands hung limply at her sides, "Why did it have to be me?" Commander Helen Shepard began to weep. Her chest heaved, and the sobs came out of her so hard, it felt like they were crashing against her chest before clawing their way up her throat.

Garrus tightened his grip around her, and threaded his fingers into her hair to press her cheek against his armor. Her own armor scraped against his with an uncomfortable grating noise, but he ignored it. "The galaxy needs you, Shepard," he started to say, and he felt her tense. She was balling her fists up, preparing to have another go at the innocent supplies already turned into flotsam and jetsam. "I need you, Helen."

Helen went limp against him, depending entirely on him to keep her standing. She wrapped her arms around him. "It's too much, Garrus. It's too much for one person to bear. I shouldn't even be here," she whispered, suddenly sounding very weak.

No, Helen, please.

"It's not fair what you're expected to do. But you're not alone. You don't need to shoulder it all, I'm here with you," Garrus assured her and rested his chin on her head. It wasn't enough, but what else could he say? There was almost nothing available to prepare him for supporting someone who was trying to save the galaxy. There was absolutely nothing to prepare him for supporting someone who had been brought back to life. He felt adrift, grasping at useless words to try to soothe the storm raging inside of her.

Once he could feel her breathing return to something close to normal, he turned her and slid one of her arms over his shoulder, preparing to lead her to the elevator. "Let's get you up to your room."

"I need to clean this mess up, Garrus." She tried to resist, but she was so exhausted, he led her away from the disaster. Even with her top of the line, experimental cybernetics and bio-amps, extended use of biotic power on this threshold was sapping. It was some wonder that she was still conscious.

Garrus laughed softly, feeling much more sure of himself in this thread of conversation. Reminding the Commander to take physical care of herself was something he excelled at now, "Commander, you have a full crew on this ship. Let them clean it. You're going to sleep until we reach Hagalaz, and that is an order."

"Cocky, insubordinate asshole," Shepard grumbled as she stumbled along with him to the elevator. She leaned heavily against Garrus, but he didn't move to pick her up. If there was one thing he was absolutely certain of, it was that one did not pick up Commander Shepard unless she was unconscious. She hated it.

“EDI, make sure this elevator doesn’t stop for anyone else until the Commander is in her cabin,” Garrus requested to the open air.

“Of course, Garrus,” the AI confirmed the command, and it was silent in the elevator again. Helen’s sobs had now turned to occasional hiccups, and she stared at her feet.

Helen hissed through her teeth as they walked into her cabin. The intense blue light coming from the aquarium wall sent strands of painful colors scattering through her vision. She closed her eyes as hard as she could stand, and fought the wave of nausea that washed over her from the photophobic sensation. “Garrus, please, turn off that light. Too bright.”

“On it, Helen,” Garrus said, barely above a whisper. He walked with her still hanging on to his side over to the aquarium controls. He turned off the lights … and fed her fish. Spirits only knew that they were only alive because of his steadfast reminders, or just coming up and doing it himself. She didn’t have this problem feeding the hamster.

Garrus didn’t mind taking care of the fish for her. It was a silent way to help her, one small task that she didn’t even need to remember that she was forgetting to do. Quite frankly, he didn’t know why Cerberus had even put a fish tank on the ship. Certainly, this wasn’t a military vessel, but it was absolutely not a cruise ship. The gun that he spent most of his free time tinkering with was top of the line combat hardware, the ship’s engines were some of the most advanced engines one could find in a ship, military or not. Every single member of the crew carried a gun. There was a krogan down on the engineering deck who would eat anything you gave to him. This was no place for pet fish.

He led the poor woman to her bed and helped her sit down. She sunk down into the mattress, leaning over her knees, and still staring at her feet. Helen was still wearing her armor, and her hair was all tangled up in her tactical visor. An enormous and defeated sigh rolled out of her, and impossibly, she slumped even more. “Garrus, can you help me get out of this shit? My arms weigh a million pounds right now.” She was trying to mask her embarrassment with hyperbole and humor. Helen hated asking for help.

Garrus silently set about undoing all of the clasps and seals holding her armor pieces together over the combat suit beneath. He placed each piece gently on the floor, careful to be respectful of her very well maintained (and very expensive) armor. As he looked up to help her free the visor from the depths of her hopelessly mussed hair, he saw that she was crying again. His brow plates furrowed, and his mandibles fluttered before clamping down against his mouth. “Helen?” he asked as he wiped a tear away with his curled talon, careful to be as gentle as possible.

It took Helen several seconds and a deep and trembling inhale before she was able to expel anything close to coherent words. “They’re going to take me away from you,” she finally managed to gasp over a truly ugly sounding sob.

He pressed his forehead to hers, and took a deep breath of his own. His chest ached, it was a truth they both knew, but they had not yet crossed the bridge of discussing it. “I know. I know, Helen … but we can worry about that later. If we survive the Collectors, we can worry about it then,” he tried to reassure her, to reassure them both. He took her hand and held it tight. “One big worry at a time, right?”

Helen leaned forward pressing her forehead into his as deeply as she could manage, as though any space between them was intolerable. She basked in the tenderness. It was one of her favorite turian gestures, it suited her perfectly. “If it were that easy to just stop worrying, I wouldn’t have torn apart the cargo bay.”

“Sounded good when I said it though, right?”

She weakly pushed his shoulder back with her free hand, a small smile turned the corner of her mouth, “You’re lucky I need you around. Cocky-”

“Insubordinate asshole,” he finished for her with a smile. “Now, come on, I wasn’t joking when I ordered you to sleep. You can’t stop the Collectors if you eat a bullet in the Shadow Broker’s base because you fell asleep behind cover.”

“It’ll take more than one bullet to do me in, Vakarian,” Helen pouted but allowed herself to be tucked in, still wearing her combat suit. Garrus even pulled the cover up to her chin, and pressed his mouth plates to her forehead. He turned to leave. “Garrus, where are you going?”

“I was in the middle of some calibrations when EDI called me down to the cargo bay,” he offered dumbly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Please, don’t leave me alone. I need you here,” Shepard said sleepily. “The gun can wait. There’s no way you can get it working even better than it already is.”

Garrus laughed, happy for the distraction from his sudden awkwardness. “Well, now it’s a challenge. I will get it firing better.”

“Garrus, please? I can’t sleep by myself anymore. I need you here. I know that armor comes off somehow, you weren’t born in it.”

Garrus shifted uncomfortably, before turning back to approach her bed. He hesitated for a moment. This was a boundary they had not crossed yet, even innocent as it was.

Fuck it.

She was asking, and she wouldn’t ask if she didn’t mean it. That’s not the kind of woman Helen was. Still, he answered with a quip, to sooth the brewing anxiety, “I thought you knew, all turians just look like this. I’ve been nude the entire time you’ve known me.”

“Is that why you haven’t replaced that blown up piece of shit yet? And here I thought it was just because you must have lost all of your money in an arm wrestling competition against Grunt,” Helen joked from somewhere within her pillow. Her eyes were closed, it was hard to keep them open with the pain running rampant through her brain. She heard the giant hunk of metal that covered his chest hit the ground, and the mattress tilt back away from her.

“Not all of us like to buy every piece of armor that someone tries to sell us, like you do,” he said, suddenly right up against her ear. His breath was warm, the dual tones of his alien voice were reassuring, and deeply pleasing. Perhaps if she hadn't worn herself out so thoroughly, it might have invoked altogether different feelings. No less pleasant ones, but far less relaxing.

It took a few very awkward moments for them to figure out exactly how their bodies would fit around each other. They were very briefly a tangle of limbs, elbows, and knees. Helen even giggled while they tried to figure it out.

Helen tucked herself in with her cheek pressed against his chest. She could hear his heart beat, it was strong and fast. She smiled because she knew he was nervous. It was deeply amusing, in her lighter moods, that she made a seven foot tall alien with literal bone and metal plates covering his body so anxious. His awkward stumbling when they were alone together was something to look forward to. A bright spot in the ever darkening and hopeless tapestry of the galaxy around her. "Thank you, for being a reason for me to be thankful that I got a second chance," she whispered.

With his arms wrapped around her, and her body tucked against him, her brain finally started to cycle down. She yawned and rubbed her cheek against his chest. The sound of his gentle breathing carried her off into blessedly dreamless sleep, something she had not had since the beacon on Eden Prime.

If only they could have stayed there like that forever. But they only had a few precious hours. The universe waited for no one.

And apparently, neither did Dr. Liara T'Soni on a revenge fueled rescue mission.

#mass effect #fanfic #garrus vakarian #femshep #shakarian #got your six #helen shepard is going through it #reposting my earlier work because i can and it's free #daisy screaming into the void

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omniblades-and-stars · 5 months

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The Space in Between

Got Your Six: Part 1

Shepard was quiet. The Commander had always been reserved, painfully professional, and doggedly respectful. To the point of rigidity at times. The mask would fall away in the mess hall, or sometimes even when she was making the rounds, checking in on the crew. There was a jokester hiding in there somewhere, genuine kindness and concern, but you would only catch brief glimpses of it in those spaces in between. But when she was on the command deck in her uniform, or in the field, she was Commander Helen Shepard, and Commander Helen Shepard only spoke when it was necessary to issue an order or wield her keen diplomatic senses like the sharpest blade.

This was not the same kind of quiet that Garrus was used to. The interior of the Mako was filled to the brim with the silence, it was so thick, he might have choked on it. No one spoke. In contrast, the sound of the engines and suspension system were the loudest noises he'd ever heard. Like standing right next to a roaring waterfall. The Commander's grip on the Mako's steering controls was so strong, he worried that she was going to pull them apart.

She deftly guided the ground transport vehicle into the Normandy's cargo bay, and the moment it was safe to disembark, she removed her safety harness and jumped down to the hard metal deck below her. He watched as the woman, who was always fastidious with her gear, removed her helmet and threw it to the ground with a sharp bang as she stormed to the elevator. The air around her body was shifting, and glowing the tell-tale cerulean that spoke of the power hiding there, always just under her skin. Her fist almost went through the elevator controls just before the door slid close, and she disappeared into the ship.

Someone needed to stop her before she hurt someone, or herself. No one had ever seen her like this. Everyone seemed to be struck dumb, or incapacitated by the force of her boiling wrath. Everyone, except Garrus Vakarian, who was hot on her tracks, her forgotten helmet held in his hands as he impatiently waited for the elevator to return. He hoped that she wasn't up in the mess whipping chairs into walls or tearing flight computers out of the bridge.

The silence on the deck as he arrived seemed foreboding, when it should have been comforting. It meant that the Commander was not letting the anger, the hurt, out. She was somewhere, trying to push it back up deep inside. Hide it in the spaces where no one could see it, but would eventually tear her apart from the inside out. He took the path to her quarters, Kaidan stood out to the side looking toward her door like it might bite him if he approached.

"Garrus, I don't think it's a good idea to bother her right now," Kaidan started, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. It was clear from his body language that he had tried to stop the Commander, only to be completely ignored. He was lucky he was only ignored.

Garrus paused for only long enough to glare at the man and snipe, "Only a bad idea if you're afraid of getting hit, Alenko." He knew what was happening, seen it before with other soldiers, even some C-Sec officers.

Perhaps he should not have said that, because it seemed to be a bit of a prophecy. He crossed the threshold into her quarters and had only just enough time to duck out of the way of a furious, glowing fist. "Commander, it's Garrus!" He barked and held her helmet out in front of him like a peace offering, or maybe a shield.

Commander Shepard had a wild, far away look in her eyes. Biotic energy rolled and roiled over her skin, and she had her hand clutched around her sidearm, ready to release it from the mag-lock that held it to her hip. It took several very tense seconds for recognition to set in, and Garrus was worried that she was going to put a bullet in between his eyes for trespassing in her quarters.

He had never seen the Commander miss.

She blinked, once, twice, and then her arms went lax and her head dropped, along with the biotic power she had been shoring up in anticipation of a fight. "Shit," she whispered and then slumped into the tiny chair at her too small desk. Commander Helen Shepard buried her face in her hands, looking defeated in a way that she had never looked before, "I am so sorry, Garrus. I lost control."

The turian reached past her to place her helmet on the desk behind her, careful not to touch her. Shepard startled a little when the helmet landed on the surface with a soft thud. There was not much space in the room, so Garrus leaned against the wall across from her and crossed his arms. "Why did you let him live Shepard?"

"It was the right thing to do. I'm not a judge or an executioner, Garrus. I'm a goddamn soldier," she spoke through her hands, looking down at the floor. Her blond hair was slipping free from her carefully pinned bun, wisping and frizzed around the edges of her cheeks and temples. He had never seen her look so out of sorts, even though she was still neater than any of the other humans on this ship by a long shot.

Garrus' mandibles flared, and he tried again, "Commander, we killed Dr. Saleon, and what he did was similar enough to this. So I am asking again, why did you let Dr. Wayne live?"

Shepard ground her teeth, he thought he could hear them creaking against each other, and dropped her hands, "Because it was the right thing to do for Toombs. Because the galaxy needs to know what happened to him. They need to know why … I need to know why."

"Was it the right thing for you?"

Her shoulders dropped, and she looked down at the floor again, "What does it matter?"

She was sewing it back up inside. Letting it build a nest in her gut, and make its home there. No good. Garrus leaned forward and with a growl, he asked again, "Why did you let Dr. Wayne live?" He held her gaze and a raw energy built up between them as her anger began to mount anew.

She snapped. Commander Helen Shepard, who never had an outburst through everything they had done so far, who handled criminals and politicians alike with the patience of a saint, leapt from her seat and shouted, "Because the only thing I wanted to do was tear him apart, limb from limb, with my own goddamn hands! I wanted, still want, to feel his fucking blood on my fingers! But I'm not a monster like he is!" She was glowing again, and she took a threatening step forward.

Now we're getting somewhere, Garrus thought to himself, just before he pushed a different button. "Tell me why you want to tear him apart, Shepard," he commanded her with a raised voice, and he knew it was just the right thing to do. Because she took another swing at him, pressure valve released. He shifted to the side to avoid being cold-clocked in the mouth plates.

"My unit died because of them!" She screamed, and threw another punch at the infuriating turian needling and prodding at her. He turned and put his back against the door to her quarters and took a step out.

"What else, Shepard? I know there's more," he was challenging her with his fucking questions. Like he wanted her to pulverize him.

She stalked after him, she wasn't going to let him get away from her, "He works for a fucking terrorist org!" She pulled her fist back, and her hand filled with pulsating light and she sent it flying into him. Garrus was sent stumbling backwards several steps, barely managing to stay standing. She was holding back.

"Commander, what's going -"

"Stay out of this, Alenko!" Garrus warned with an outstretched hand as he regained his stance. "That's not why you wanted to kill him, is it Shepard? Tell me the real reason why!"

The energy pulsing around her flared again and she used both hands to send the insubordinate asshole sailing onto his back with a biotic push that seemed to warp the air around them. He slid into the wall with a groan, the impact winded him.

Her head was aching, and her nose was bleeding. "Because all of this time I thought I was the only one! Thought I couldn't save them! But it wasn't fucking true!" She closed the newly created distance between them, looking down at the slightly dazed alien at her feet. "They say I'm a hero for surviving, but I wasn't alone and I thought I was!"

Her voice grew quieter, throat raw and voice ragged from the screaming, "I could have saved Toombs, but I didn't. He paid the price for my failure. I didn't do enough." She grimaced, and stumbled, holding her head.

Damn it, she pushed herself too hard. Too much after fighting Toombs' mercenaries. She slid to her knees, and everything seemed to go gray for a minute. Shepard was faintly aware that she was being lifted from the ground, and led somewhere.

"What were you thinking, Vakarian? That could have killed her, or you!"

"No offense, Alenko, but please shut up. I know what I'm doing."

"Garrus, Kaidan, I heard the commotion. Put the Commander here. What happened?"

It was Kaidan who answered, "She pushed herself too hard, with biotics, ma'am." He barely restrained himself from throwing Garrus under the proverbial bus. But he was an adult, and tattling was unbecoming.

Helen tried to open her eyes, but the migraine was in full swing. The harsh lights in the medbay were too bright, and they sent painful streaks of lightning through her vision. "I am fine, Dr. Chakwas. I just need water and a nap," Shepard said cooly and through clenched teeth.

Dr. Chakwas chuckled in that friendly and caring way that she always did, "I am sure you are right, Commander. But if it is all the same to you, I'm going to give you a saline drip and something for the pain. You threw our friend here so hard it dented the ship!"

The good doctor herded the two men out of the medbay, and silently got the Commander hooked to an IV. Once she was satisfied with her work, she rolled her desk chair up to the side of the table the Alliance called "medical beds", as a joke maybe, and sat down next to Shepard. "Now that the boys are gone, why don't you tell me what that was really about, Commander?"

"The mission," Shepard's answer was clipped, and she pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead to try to ease the pressure there. "We went to save a scientist who was being targeted by someone who killed other scientists."

"I'm listening, dear. What happened?"

Tears stung at Shepard's eyes, but they didn't fall, "The killer, he was another survivor, from Akuze. The scientists, they captured him, tortured him, I don't really know what they were doing to him, but it had to be terrible. But he survived, Chakwas, and I didn't save him. I could have saved him from them."

Dr. Karin Chakwas rested her chin atop folded hands, "Commander, may I speak bluntly?"

"Of course, doctor."

"Commander, you cannot possibly save everyone. You do the impossible nearly every day, Shepard. If it was possible for you to save him, you would have. The Commander I know does not give up, nor does she cut corners," the doctor spoke kindly as Shepard massaged her temples with her outstretched hand.

Commander Shepard was silent for a very long time, and the doctor did not press her for a response. Eventually, Helen groaned and dropped her hand limply beside her body. "I made an ass out of myself. I need to apologize to Garrus. Did I really dent my ship?"

"You should be thanking him, I think, Commander. And no, it was hyperbole, it's only lightly scuffed," Chakwas laughed and rolled away from the table to her desk. "You may leave to go say your apologies after you have had some rest. You may be the Commander on this ship, but doctor's orders trump all."

It was a few days later before Helen had a break long enough to swallow her embarrassment and go apologize to Garrus. First, she tried apologizing to Kaidan for storming past him and then exposing him to her outburst, but he spent the whole conversation telling her it wasn't her fault, and grousing about how Garrus shouldn't have pushed her like that.

She didn't appreciate it. The way he treated her like a porcelain doll. It was just a fucking nosebleed. Those were a dime a dozen in her life. Especially when she didn't get enough sleep, or stop to eat. Hard to do when she's careening from planet to planet chasing down a cybernetic madman and his synthetic lackeys with barely the time to stop and catch her breath.

The elevator door slid open and Commander Shepard stepped into the cargo bay. She was wearing her fatigues, and her hair was perfectly pinned in place, like it always was. Her shoulders were set back, and she held her hands behind her back. A career soldier stood in the hold, looking over the people standing at ease. Wrex leaned back against the wall by the storage lockers, grumbling about something or other. Ashley worked on cleaning her weapon while she listened to a new vid message from her sister. That requisition officer stood awkwardly to her right, looking as if he was absolutely itching for her to buy something from him.

She ignored him, eyes coming to rest on Garrus. He was currently elbow deep in the Mako, adjusting something in the suspension system. The Mako started leaning to the left after Shepard drove it nose first off of a mountain side during their last excursion.

The Commander approached and leaned down to watch what he was doing under there. It was all Greek to her under the chasis. A biotic powerhouse and crack shot she was, a mechanical wunderkind she was not. "Garrus, do you have a moment?"

"I'm almost done … and there it is," he answered as he twisted something, and the Mako shifted slightly with a hydraulic hiss. Garrus pulled himself out from under the enormous vehicle, and wiped his hands clean on a shop towel. "Need me for something?"

Helen stood up straight, running her hands over her sides to straighten her uniform back out. "Yes, Garrus, I came to apologize for my behavior the other day. Unprofessional does not begin to cover it, I'm afraid," she started strong but faltered a bit, and she started rubbing her upper arm, a rarely seen tic that popped up when she was uncomfortable. "Look, I shouldn't have tried to hit you, nice dodge by the way, and I definitely should not have thrown you like that."

Garrus laughed and shook his head, "I knew it was a risk going in Commander. It takes more than that to take me out."

"You might not have noticed, but I don't do emotional displays. But thank you. I think I needed it," she returned her hands behind her back, and returned to her professional mask.

"Anytime, Commander. Though with any luck, it won't be necessary again."

The Commander let a small smile break through, and nodded, "Dismissed Vakarian, I have a call with Admiral Hackett in ten minutes." She turned on her heel and just before she marched off, she looked over her shoulder at the turian, "Oh, and Garrus?"

"Shepard?"

"Next time you come to my quarters, knock first."

#mass effect #fanfic #shakarian #garrus vakarian #femshep #my writing #reposting my earlier work because i can and it's free #got your six #helen shepard is going through it #daisy screaming into the void

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