Chapter Text
Garrus stood at attention outside the brimming and bustling restaurant district of the Presidium. Geysering water shot up from the lake, artificial light and clouds buzzed in the air. Followed by the very real pest of pigeons that had infested the Citadel since the humans arrival.
A council monument stared down at him: an asari in the middle with arms low and outstretched, a salarian to her left mimicking like he was reading over a datapad, and a turian to the right with a rifle ready.
It was a common target for vandalism, so he stayed ten meters away, watching passersby.
Spirits, he hated this post.
Garrus had been rotated out from the sniper's nest of the council chambers. In his six months on the Citadel, he had spent a lot of time paranoidly watching and bitching with his spotter, a human recruit named Lamont, who spoke at the speed of a starving varren.
His father insisted that he be out in the open with the actual people of the Citadel, and hiding away would not sharpen his pursuits towards detective work. And with the pull of strings, Garrus was forced out and open on the Presidium, where the distance between him and any targets could be arm's length. No longer were his days staring down a scope comfortably from a hidden balcony.
Lost tourists, drunk diplomats, and anyone in between scurried by in the open-air ward. Most treated him as nothing more than a background prop, merely going around him where he stood guard and rifle ready—mimicking the turian statue ahead of him.
Seven hours into his shift, hunger pulled at his abdomen, and he took a mental note to prepare to call for a relief officer. That was until four humans stumbled into his view out of a restaurant. Shouts and cheers already echoed up to him twenty meters away. Garrus took a defensive stance, already sensing drunk shore leave marines' antics. He holstered his rifle, all for show anyway; it was useless at this distance. His visor locked in on the targets, slowly counting their distance from him.
Two humans rushed to the railings, staring directly up at the monument. Their heads upturned at the ten-meter asari statue, getting uncomfortably close to the rails of the lake.
While a bandaged human with a red crest dragged along another human, who was slumped on her shoulders. The dragged soldier's head shot up, and her eyes zeroed in on Garrus. The drunk pushed herself away from the other human and darted towards Garrus.
“Nice visor, I w-want it.”
Crap.
Taser, hand-to-hand combat, flashing his fangs? That last one normally scared off drunk harassing humans. All calculations passed over his head, trying to find the most straightforward solution that wouldn’t require paperwork.
A pale pink arm covered in light brown dots smacked the human out of the way before he could react.
“Jesus Christ, Collins!” A nectar-slicked voice hissed through. “Are you trying to get arrested? Or worse, court-martialed?”
The bandaged human, wearing a furrowed brow, dragged the other human away in a scolding tone.
Garrus sighed. He was going to have to deal with this. He took a relaxed stance as he walked towards them. The red-crested human held the other's arms, hissing out an untranslatable but threatening tone.
“Excuse me, is there a problem?”
The red-crested human pushed the other towards their friends. “Go, I’ll handle this,” she whispered.
White teeth flashed out at him in a wide grin, a human sign to placate a situation, even if it translated to turians as a threat.
“Sorry, shit, really I am. Sorry, um, Officer?”
“Vakarian.”
“Officer Vakarian, thank you, please don’t mind them. They’re just drunk marines blowing off steam.”
“And idiots apparently.” Garrus nodded to the now three stumbling humans, all trying to smack the hand of the asari statue monument, missing by nearly a meter.
“Just a little higher,” one slurred out.
Her brows shot up, eyes winced in pain on a bandage that covered the right side of her face. She kept her stance straight as she surveilled her friends.
“Christ, drunken dumbasses.”
“Not drinking with your friends?”
“And risk a worse diplomatic incident? Also on pain meds,” she pointed to her face. “Doc says I can’t mix.”
“So the drugged is leading the drunks.”
“I’m managing well,” she said, eyes somewhat glazing over as she watched several pigeons fly over.
Garrus sighed again, now pinching between his brow plates—she may end up being an issue too.
“Sure you are. Listen, just get your friends off the Presidium, try the Wards. Somewhere like Flux.”
Her eyes snapped back to attention. “Flux, um,” she mumbled as more of a question.
“It’s a casino. Get your friends drinking water, and you’ll find people more your speed there and less likely to end up in a sobering cell.”
Her glazed-over eyes focused now back on him, and she took a step closer to him.
“You’re a sniper?” Her head peeked over his shoulder, her eyeline now focused right on his rifle rather than listening to his advice. Garrus took a step back to keep a distance between them as she continued. “This close to the action?”
“We all have to suffer a cycle through drunk tourist duty for a couple of months.”
“Oh, so you're a rookie then getting the shit shift.”
“More annoying than ‘shit’,” Garrus quoted back at her.
“Oh, so I'm annoying then?”
“Only somewhat,” Garrus flexed out a single manible in jest.
She laughed in response. “So what’s C-Sec issuing out with their rifles? Strikers? I’m more of a Typhoon fan, but they're reliable."
“Strikers, Series VIII,” he said proudly. It had been the most high-end rifle he’d used, even better than any issued to him from the Hierarchy. That pride was soon deflated by her constant questions.
“Couldn’t get C-Sec to go IX or better yet, X?” She waggled her one free eyebrow.
“Well, I’d have to make more arrests for that kind of fund,” Garrus said, nodding over to her friends, now out of breath from jumping.
He raised his brow plates in jest, a trait he picked up from Lamont when communicating with humans. Over half their language apparently came from body and facial movements, Lamont had to explain to him. Although the widening of her eyes, Garrus realized she hadn’t picked up what he tried to communicate.
“I’m kidding, just make sure they don’t fall into the lake and get out of here.”
She laughed again. “Okay, okay, I get it." Her arms went up in defense. “I’ll take care of them. Thank you. It was nice meeting you, Officer Vakarian.”
“Vakarian is fine, nice meeting you too, um,”
“Shepard,” she stuck her hand out. Without much thought, he mirrored her and offered his opposing hand.
Five thin fingers wrapped around him in a gentle squeeze. Warmth grew up his spine and spread out down his carapace. His mandibles twitched. The last time anyone had gripped his hands was of an old girlfriend as they spoke parting goodbyes during an amicable breakup—A final act of intimacy. The touching of palms had always been an act withheld only for those closest to him.
And here the human did it with such ease.
She pulled away first, but that heat of palm remained, seeping past the thin fabric of his glove.
She flashed a broad, flat-toothed smile and winked with her bad eye.
“I’ll try to stay out of trouble. See you around, Vakarian.”
___
Garrus rested his visor on Shepard’s cluttered desk. The memory shot into him of the grunt trying to steal it from him and then—her. Shepard just standing there. Plain as day, illuminated by the Presidium's artificial and never-ending lights.
Red strands of hair framed her face with dark brown to almost black roots growing out. Green eyes peered out past the bandages. A lopsided grin with light pink lips. Each detail about her at the time that he didn’t notice or appreciate all poured back into him.
She had never remembered that meeting. High on the painkillers was her excuse. But it was memorable to Garrus, one of the few times he had a friendly encounter on the Presidium, even if the start was rough. And as he followed her, it made sense; she always had a knack for chatting up and questioning strangers.
He would do anything to go back to that moment.
Instead, he stood hollow, unsure where to start in the mess she left behind for him. Her half-full wine glass spilled to the floor during the crash landing of the Normandy. Red wine had covered the metal flooring, and the glass had cracked and shattered. Three pieces still contained a fresh lipstick stain from the previous day.
She was just here.
Only twelve hours ago, her voice rang louder than the hum of Harbinger's blast—You know I love you, I always will.
He almost expected her to walk off the elevator and throw her feet up on the coffee table, as if they weren’t stranded on Elysium of all places.
Two relay systems away from Sol. What would have been a one-hour travel max now became at minimum six months travel without the relays.
Garrus puttered around the scattered cabin, acid built at the back of his throat. Adrenaline finally calming down, he had barely eaten on the last day of the siege on Earth, and it was finally hitting him.
He threw open her desk, where spare dextro protein bars lay stashed away. Only fifteen remained, her supply for him running low.
Garrus shoved the bar into his mouth and kept moving along the cabin to clean. If he stopped moving, that would mean he’d have to think. If he let those thoughts creep up. The unhelpful, scary truth of it all, that she’s dead. If he admitted it, he would just let the hunger take him.
They were stranded, three hundred miles south of the mountainous capital, Illyria, of Elysium. Morning light peered through the shattered star window above their bed. Dried leaves flecked and filled in amongst the crumpled bed sheets where she lay on top just a day ago.
They would need to man the Kodiak and venture into the city in hopes of first finding supplies to retrofit the Normandy and beg for a restock of food, medicine, and water, just as he had coordinated for the turian camps. This would be different, with a lot more dietary concerns for the mixed crew.
Garrus threw his visor back on and rushed towards the elevator door. They needed to head out to the city where Shepard made her name known to the galaxy, as the Hero of Elysium.