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They left the plaque with Kaidan because somebody had to carry the heavy things. And, presumably, because Garrus was working on the Normandy’s new calibrations.
It’d take a while—not as long as the rest of the stuff that had to be patched up. That was the thing about synthetic materials: you could use them all the time for people, but when it came to healing, it was the people who were easier to rebuild. Scars on flesh were different from rubble or shorn metal. And maybe they lasted longer, but they showed up quicker, too.
They never lost communications. They heard the cheering, as loud as static, and they felt the pain a long time before impact.
But even if they had lost communications—even if they hadn’t heard the cheering—Kaidan probably would’ve been able to tell how things went down. Because the sky over the planet was clear and the air fresh, and he hadn’t smelled anything that wasn’t burning in a long, long time.
And then, the smoke got in his mouth and hit the back of his throat all the same, rising off one of the Normandy’s thrusters.
‘We’ll have her back up and running soon,’ Joker said. ‘With Vakarian working out those calibrations… It’ll be like we never stopped.’
The break in his voice meant he wasn’t just talking about a ship, or that he didn’t want to be. Kaidan clasped his shoulder but he had to be gentle about it; at least it was enough to keep his hands from shaking.
They didn’t start up again after that.
In a time like this, nobody bothered listing off the names of everyone they’d lost. The crew was lucky in that sense, getting to hear about most of the people they knew because they were important enough to be mentioned. And when others weren’t, it wasn’t the same as radio silence.
It was somewhere between that and hope. Stuck on a quiet planet where fresh air met smoke and burning metal, and the only broken branches were the ones they’d crashed into.
‘Admiral David Anderson,’ the feed said. ‘Confirmed: Killed In Action.’
Kaidan’s hands didn’t shake and his knees didn’t go out from under him. He waited for more, but it cut in and out, talk about the Mass Relays and the rising casualties in London. Something about the Citadel, too, and he knew it wouldn’t make him feel any better—maybe because nothing would—but he turned it off and tuned it out. Everybody else kept listening, Liara standing next to the broadcast systems, while Kaidan felt a thin line of sweat from the heat roll down his back and settle under his belt. He squinted into the quiet sunrise, right next to the fine white ring around the shadow of the planet’s biggest moon, and they gave him the plaque to put up on the wall under Anderson’s—or not.
He didn’t do it. Time would tell if that was because he couldn’t.
*
Being the one who called the shots—it was what every soldier trained for and training ended when they knew it.
But being ready for a thing to go down wasn’t the same as living with it after.
Since Fehl, James got it. He stood with the commander and that was that: the difference between a dumb kid on the run from somebody else’s mistakes and a man who knew how stare down his own.
That was when it really started. When the reps you’d been doing, the training weights you’d been lifting, were put to the test—to see if you could shoulder the real stuff in the quiet place after making the call.
They’d been running since the Reapers hit earth. Leaving homeworlds behind. Leaving officers. And now they were on their way back, dressed in something clean, and only one new name was up on that memorial wall.
‘The closest humanity can really get to the stars,’ Liara said, folding her arms across her chest.
‘Save it for somebody who likes poetry,’ James replied.
He wasn’t staring at the name that wasn’t there. How the hell could he? And he couldn’t feel space moving around them because if Vakarian knew one thing, it was how to be a turian-sized pain in the ass, and if he knew another, it was how to make stalled things start running again.
‘I’m not gonna talk about my feelings, either,’ James added, rolling his shoulders out, still not shaking the weight off.
‘That’s too bad,’ Liara said. ‘I suspect you have too many of them for that to work very long.’
James snorted and crossed his arms, because sometimes the only thing standing between you and how bad a thing hurt was putting that armor on and shutting up.
‘It’s been working my whole life,’ James pointed out.
When Liara told him that getting out was the same thing the commander would’ve done, James shook his head. That he could still shake.
‘Nah. He was loco.’ And ran toward a beam when everyone else was running away from it. And was the first pendejo in years to get James on his back, to show him being beat was just like getting strong. You didn’t have to hate it. You could learn from it, too.
‘Well,’ Liara said, both of them looking at nothing. ‘Maybe you know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant.’
*
It wasn’t as easy for a lot of humans working together to get things done as it was for one turian to take matters into his own hands. If Garrus Vakarian hadn’t learned all about that already, well…
He certainly didn’t deserve to be known as Commander Shepard’s right-hand man. Or, technically, his right-hand turian.
If councils didn’t get in the way of intelligent action then petitions and bills and, even worse, treaties got in the way of common sense, of hands-on expertise, of saying ‘this needs to be fixed’ and then, with the tools they had and the scraps they’d gathered, actually fixing it.
They needed Shepard. Without him, they came closer and closer to being nothing more than idiots.
But there was a spark—something Shepard loved that Garrus knew had thin skin and soft little bodies and needed, very badly, to be protected at any cost. If he fucked that up—well, then, Shepard really wouldn’t let him hear the end of it.
If someone had to guide a few troublesome blowhards through the complications of getting things done, the difficulties and the tough-sells, and that someone couldn’t be Shepard, it was a lucky break they still had a right-hand turian.
Garrus rubbed his right hand—thanks to an old ache from how often he’d been pulling that trigger lately. He let the people who wanted to talk do their talking, the same as Shepard, only he stared at them more and so they fidgeted more, likely because the intensity of his expression made them feel uncomfortable.
Maybe it quickened their tongues a bit. Maybe all it did was let Garrus feel better. But since the latter was the only thing they could measure without getting fifteen stamps of bureaucratic approval beforehand, Garrus let it settle in with the old ache for the long haul.
People—doctors, for the most part, and well-meaning but utterly useless officials—were always asking him if he wanted some medigel.
‘Now why would I want something like that?’ he replied, making sure they could hear his teeth.
Thankfully for them, they never saw reason to ask twice.
But if there was one thing they could all agree on, it was doing whatever they could to contact the Citadel. Which, after two weeks of unprecedented failure, they finally did—thanks to a little girl with a transistor radio she’d built out of Commander Shepard’s omni-tool.
‘This is the Citadel,’ she said. ‘And we have survivors.’
Garrus rubbed his hand, a cramp seizing suddenly and without warning in his turian joints. The signals couldn’t be ignored, but he needed to hear one word.
Perhaps, one day, it would be an artifact, like a Prothean Beacon—or an actual Prothean, hidden for years through some very clever trick of time.
‘Commander Shepard is on the Citadel,’ the girl said. ‘I repeat: we are keeping Commander Shepard alive on the Citadel. …Or what’s left of it, anyway.’
‘Good job, soldier,’ Garrus said, and finally smiled.
*
She was only twelve years old. ‘Thirteen now, actually,’ she said.
‘No kidding,’ James replied.
He’d sat back, watching Alenko shake her hand, watching Vakarian stare at her like she was made out of something he didn’t understand—and for all James knew, he didn’t. Maybe turians didn’t even have kids. Maybe they just…came out like they were and like they were always gonna be and kept at it out of sheer stubbornness, slamming it with their hard-ass heads.
James could respect that attitude. It got him into the decontamination chamber first—either that, or old-fashioned seniority.
‘And Garrus Vakarian,’ the girl added, softer, shy and hungry, ‘called me soldier.’
James nodded, as impressed as he could be. ‘You know what—that’s better than I usually get from that guy. And I was on his squad for a while, too.’
‘Cool,’ she told him.
‘Yeah,’ James agreed. ‘The guy was obsessed with chicken, though. Kept talking about it. Maybe he looks cool when you don’t know him better, but really, he’s a pretty freaky dude.’
‘That’s okay,’ the girl said. ‘Most turians are.’
James chuckled but he didn’t feel like it meant anything, rubbing his hands on his thighs. He could’ve asked the kid what she knew—if she’d been there with a guy everybody wanted some news of, if she’d seen him breathing or what. Like if she’d held his hand for a while, or if he’d told her I need you to contact my crew.
Shepard was probably just messing with them. Hell, James’d be the first one to make everybody worry and enjoy the benefits, people calling him a hero, sitting by his bedside and looking to be comforted.
‘I read his name on his dogtags.’ The girl stopped kicking her legs. James had to bite his tongue but it didn’t help with any suspicions that he was on babysitting duty.
At least this wasn’t one of Wrex’s kids. That’d just take the fucking cake.
‘I’m glad he isn’t dead,’ the girl said.
‘Me, too,’ James replied.
He said they’d give her a better medal of honor—a commendation or something like that, a big Alliance star she could show off to everyone she knew.
‘I don’t know where my friends are,’ she admitted.
‘Well, one of ‘em’s right here,’ James told her, tugging off his chain and putting it where it belonged: right over her head.
*
Well, Shepard, Garrus thought. When I told you to give them hell, I didn’t mean you should look like it afterward.
It was a good line; just their style. It’d make Shepard chuckle, then wince, then tell him Don’t do that to me, Garrus, ‘cause laughing’s just going to mess up the skin graft. And Garrus would tell him he sounded like a raw recruit, not the old soldier they both knew he was, and if he’d only stop complaining he’d start feeling more like himself.
Well, Shepard.
It was just that easy, a part to play that everybody knew. Shepard always had the script. Garrus always nailed his delivery. The good lines were always there.
But Shepard was there, too. Bandages around his head, no turian fringe to keep it protected. His eyes were covered up; temporary, his files said, but it was why Garrus had to be the one to go in first. And tubes everywhere, of course, most of the burns covered up and already well on their way to healing. Most of it was damage from the blast—his eyesight loss, sensitivity to bright light, and the ear implants he was going to need.
The skin grafts would hardly look as good on Shepard as they did on Garrus. Humans scarred so differently, and they were always so vain about their appearance after.
‘Well, Shepard,’ Garrus said.
It was as far as he got. You could talk or you could do, but most never achieved both at the same time. Banter was one thing—when you had someone on the other end to keep it up.
Garrus crossed the room. He had a limited amount of time before one Spectre Kaidan Alenko got fussy and not everyone knew what it meant to be a productive member of Alpha Team. So Garrus pulled up a chair without the intention of staying long, resting his forehead against the cotton bandages wrapped around Shepard’s thick head, a soft texture his skin just couldn’t feel. He closed his eyes, also a temporary blindness.
‘I look like hell,’ Shepard said, voice as rough as a vorcha’s. ‘Don’t I, Garrus?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Shepard,’ Garrus replied, feeling Shepard’s breath ghost along that damn scar of his. Only one breath at first, but soon they’d all know there were going to be at least a few more. ‘I think it suits you.’
*
There was no way—just no way—to read Garrus Vakarian’s face. Not even Shepard could do it and from what Kaidan had heard, he couldn’t see much at the moment, anyway. Garrus was only in there with him for a couple of minutes, not even. So either Shepard was out, or there was something nobody wanted to say where Kaidan could hear them.
It didn’t matter. Kaidan had this name on a plaque to give him and a whole speech ready that boiled down to: This time, I believed in you, Shepard. You said you’d be waiting for me and I trusted that; I never stopped trusting.
If it was true, if it wasn’t true… What mattered was less what they’d thought and more what was. It took a long time to learn, but maybe they could pass it on without any more Reaper invasions.
‘You know Commander Shepard,’ Garrus said, voice soft behind his teeth but hard where it counted. ‘He’s never been what you’d call pretty.’
But he was, in a way. Handsome, too. With blue eyes and a soft mouth and the worst timing when it came to saying I love you.
‘I’ll… I’ll tell him you said that, Garrus,’ Kaidan said.
‘Good,’ Garrus replied. ‘His ego’s bound to get too big, anyway.’
The door opened. Kaidan stepped inside.
There was always this hope—when you fell in love with someone, when you realized they’d done the same—that they’d just know when you were around or far away. That love was another sense, a little more painful than breathing. That it kept a man alive; that it brought him back to you at the end of a long, long day.
Kaidan didn’t know what to call it, only to believe it was there, lying in the same med-bay with Shepard—hooked up to a bunch of machines when they’d been fighting a bunch of machines all along—saying it wasn’t the end, not yet.
That it was only the beginning.
Shepard turned his head, even if his eyes were covered and there was no way he could see past the cotton. Everything was cleaner than Kaidan was expecting, neat and tidy, but that was a good thing. Of course, they were taking good care of him.
They were all so good at patching things up, at holding them together.
‘I don’t know,’ Kaidan began, his voice all chewed raw—like the pictures of London they’d seen, dead things everywhere, only a few distress flares still living. ‘Garrus said you didn’t look pretty, but I don’t think it’s that bad.’
‘Turian expectations,’ Shepard said. ‘Can’t live up to them.’
Kaidan remembered what it was like to stare into the sun, to remember it was rising and not setting. He remembered how his eyes burned and the sweat on his back, how certain and uncertain he’d been. And he patched it up, held it together.
‘Don’t know why you put yourself through all of that.’ With every step Kaidan took, it got easier to get closer. ‘Guess you must like it—being put through hell.’
Shepard coughed and Kaidan didn’t know anymore if it was a laugh or something else. There wasn’t much he could touch but he had to, as much for himself as it was for Shepard. That was how they had to do things, starting now.
Not leaving anyone else behind. No more lives used up, no more second-second chances. They were gonna do this and it had to be together.
‘You must like putting other people through hell, too,’ Kaidan added, taking Shepard’s hand. Somehow, it didn’t disappear beneath his fingers, a trick of the light off a name stamped in polished metal.
‘You know, Kaidan,’ Shepard said, ‘I think I’d be crying right about now if I’d already had the eye surgery.’
The whole thing was what it was—a man first, finally, and a soldier second—so obvious that Kaidan had to laugh. It was nothing more than a chuckle, all dried out, but it was like cracking a code and opening an airlock. It wasn’t about patching things up or holding them together, not anymore.
Kaidan didn’t stop chuckling. It just…turned into something else, that was all, bowing his head over Shepard’s fingers and still so damn careful he wasn’t going to hurt them by letting any part of himself be heavy. He felt Shepard’s thumb twitch when his hair hit the knuckle and Kaidan hadn’t cried like this when he got the news about Dad, when he spoke to Mom again for the first time—not even after he watched Shepard get him to safety and leave with his shoulders squared.
Again.
Again.
It just kept coming; there wasn’t an end to beginning. Kaidan said something like, ‘You know what, Shepard, I— I should go,’ and Shepard chuckled too, until the rasp in his throat said it was more than that.
‘You’re killing me, Kaidan,’ Shepard said.
Kaidan kissed his palm, flesh next to the tubes, under the bandages. Everything held together, Kaidan holding Shepard’s hand. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I don’t think anybody can.’
Shepard fumbled while reaching for him, running shaking fingers through Kaidan’s hair. Some of it tickled his knuckles and made them twitch.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Kaidan, I’m here. I’m here.’
But Kaidan didn’t need to hear it—because there was always this hope, and Kaidan said, ‘Yeah.’
END