Author's Note: This fic was overhauled/edited/partially re-written on 2/16/15.

This work is the culmination of a few weeks of reading inspiration, several ME2 and ME3 playthroughs, and a serious obsession with the Garrus/FemShep relationship. I've written several parts of this walkthrough, which means I'll be updating on a regular. I plan on breaking this into three different parts: ME2 up to Shepard's incarceration on Earth; ME3 up until the defeat of the Reapers; and possibly a work with several chapters of "after".

There is a heavy focus on the mental aspects of both Shepard and Garrus, both coming to terms with how Shepard's death has changed them. In this I have tried really hard to maintain Garrus as, well, the Garrus that I know and love. There won't be too much fluff.

All mistakes made are mine; I'm in serious need of a beta. As always, reviews are welcome. I would really like to hear what people want to read.

This story will probably get dark. M rated accordingly.

All characters belong to Bioware.

The cool metal crate against his back was a welcome comfort against the broiling Omega air. Heat sinks littered the floor around his bunker, along with food wrappers and miscellaneous drink containers. Cocking his rifle, he rested the back of his helmet against the crate and sighed. The air was heavy with heat and humidity, weighing down on his shoulders like a heavy blanket.

With the grace of an apex predator, he slunk around his cover, raising his sniper against his shoulder, a practiced move, like the caress of a lover. The visor over his left eye was seeking out heat signatures, vital signs, targets. His right eye was staring down the scope, the cross-hairs coming to a rest over the helmet of a merc. With a slow exhale, he squeezed the trigger and watched the enemy go down, to him, only a small hint of satisfaction. Two years ago, he would be keeping a kill tally. Now, everything but this moment was a dark stain in the back of his mind.

He quietly mused he wouldn't mind going out this way. He knew the bridge would offer him the best position to hold off the mercs alone, but he had boxed himself in. Between shots he registered his fatigue; muscles that just wouldn't respond quite the way he wanted them to. His trigger finger was heavy in his glove, the effort of holding the rifle to his shoulder was becoming a burden.

Another heat sink clattered to the floor as he cocked the gun again. Through the scope, he surveyed the lower level. He knew the gunship would be back eventually, and with no more grenades, he also knew his chances had fallen to slim to none. In the deep recesses of his mind, his mortality gave a violent shudder.

His visor alerted him to another wave incoming, and he lined up a shot. In an impressive spray of red, a yellow-armored bastard went , he thought to himself. Most of the freelancers the Blue Suns and Eclipse had been contracting recently were of the human variety. Fodder for distraction, they threw themselves at him in wave of desperation, their lives snuffed out with a single crack of his rifle. Worth the 500 credits? he thought bitterly to himself as his rifle sang out again. They just keep coming. His scope followed a cluster of four, cowering behind metal crates for cover. His angle was just about right, and lined up another head in his cross-hairs, finger resting lightly on the trigger. The merc's chest exploded. The sniper raised his head, confused; the bullet had never left his gun.

Three well-armored freelancers advanced on the cluster of mercs, plowing them down with several retorts of their pistols. He cocked his head to the side, watching through his scope. Three humans, with enough credits to procure real armor, and enough training to be an organized force. He expelled the heat sink from his sniper and loaded a concussion round, firing. It hit the leader square in the shoulder, but the figure didn't hesitate, charging forward. Better to act as if they aren't friendly…but just in case.

When the fourth merc went down, he watched them advance across the bridge. The one in front, female human, moved with the practiced grace of an infiltrator. He could see her own sniper rifle strapped to her back, muzzle peeking over the shoulder of her armor. Even from a distance, he could tell her eyes were sweeping the area, looking not only for danger, but for cover, a vantage point. Constantly assessing. There was something predatory in her movements, her gait lithe and smooth. He shook his head to try and clear his vision, and put his eye back to the scope.

He was seeing a ghost.

They were halfway across the bridge when he began to feel his heart race. The human female's dark hair glowed in the red light of the room, falling slickly across her face where it had worked free of the braid. Look up here. Let me see you, he urged, gripping the stock of his rifle like a vice. Three-quarters of the way across the bridge, as they are about to cross into the room underneath his perch, she raised her head and looked up at his position.

His heart stopped.

Grey eyes stared up at him, pinpointing his location, and she signaled her team to move.

She's...alive?

His self-preservation, shoved deep and packed away in the dark recesses of his mind, struggled to emerge through the fog of self-loathing and baser instincts. Almost all of his willpower had been focused on taking out as many of the enemy as possible before going down in a blaze of glory. He had been ready, fighting against instinctual self-preservation. But this ghost, this apparition in black armor cut through the hatred and remorse, blazing a shining path of hope that caught him in its glow.

Taking several deep breaths, he forced himself to focus. He would allow them to come up; he had about thirty seconds to figure out exactly what the hell was happening. Another wave of mercs crossed his scope, and he loaded a heat sink into his rifle, making it sing. Two shots rang out in staccato, and as the last merc dropped, he listened for their footsteps behind him.

"Archangel?"

He held up a gloved hand in a "one second" gesture, and lined up another merc in his crosshairs. Forcing his trigger finger to obey, he fired and his target dropped.

Taking another calming breath, his mind spun in bewilderment. He used the butt of his rifle as a crutch and stood, uncurling all six and a half feet of his armored figure. Fatigue had melted into pure adrenaline, causing him to still his trembling hands. He leaned the muzzle of the gun against his shoulder and sat down casually on a crate, calmly, calmly, assessing the people in front of him.

A stocky, well-muscled man with dark skin and calculating eyes; a tall woman, figure wrapped in a skin-tight uniform, emanating an air of superiority; and their leader. She was shorter than her comrades, but with an aura that spoke of quiet power. Tan skin, high cheekbones burnished dark by the red lights. Her ochre hair was drawn into a thick braid, pulled back from her face, grey eyes smoldering with determination. An apparition personified, standing before him in the flesh.

His mind reeled back to the last time he had seen her, shaking his hand in front of C-Sec headquarters, still glowing from their triumph over Saren. She had been so utterly alive in that moment; it was impossible to even fathom death having the upper hand on her. And yet, there had been the announcement, and the funeral with an empty casket. The two years of pain and mourning bleeding together into a string of hazy memories.

But she was here, standing before him, very much alive. So alive that her figure almost glowed with pent up energy. There was no tetchiness to her, just calm resolve wrapped in a current of determination. She was assessing him, eyes traveling over his languid figure. An edge of apprehension drew the corners of her mouth down, but there was almost a look of hope glimmering in those grey eyes. Her female comrade cleared her throat impatiently, shattering his ruminations.

Unlatching his helmet, he cradled it to his side, a roguish smile on his face.

"Shepard," he said, the name tasting unfamiliar in his mouth.

"Garrus?" her voice was quiet and calm, even in surprise.

"I thought you were dead."

"I was."

Blue had always been her favorite color. It was the color of the sky on Earth, the color of a lake cradled between mountains. But there was blue everywhere, and all she could see in it was loss.

Garrus' indigo blood still covered her hands. As she watched Doctor Chakwas and Jacob lay the turian on a hospital table, the door between the mess hall and med bay hissed shut. The last image she saw was his visor, flashing bright as a star.

"Shit. Shit." The expletives tripped off her tongue quietly, burning her mouth in their wake. She strode across the room and leaned her hands against the kitchen island, trying to control her emotions. Blood dripped slowly onto the metal floor. Each drop sounded like a bomb, or the tick of those old analog clocks sold as novelties at the Citadel. Ticking time away. Ticking life away. She had tried to staunch the flow, ripping off her gloves and cupping his damaged face in her hands. His eyes had stared up at here, fogged over. Blue.

"Commander," Jacob exited the medbay with a solemn look on his face. "You should go clean up. Chakawas said it could be a while before she could patch him up." He gave her a look, wanting to say more. Reverting back into military bluntness, he grew still. "It doesn't look good."

"Thanks, Jacob." Shepard ran her hands through her hair, only to realize they were still bloodied. "It's just a waiting game, now." She tucked the sticky strands behind her ears and dashed a hand across her eyes. The smell and smog of Omega lingered on her skin, and turian blood was cold on her face.

"He's a tough son of a bitch." Jacob clapped a hand on her shoulder.

I know, Shepard said silently. It sounded like a prayer.

Up in her quarters, she stared into the mirror. Her face was not only filthy from sweat, but the streaks of vibrant blood shone against her skin. She leaned in closer, studying the color against her tan cheeks. It was a striking reminder of her comrade's mortality, and she raced across the room and smacked the button, turning the shower on with a hiss of hot water. Buckles snapped as she removed her armor in record time. Under the clinical-like lights in the bathroom, she could see droplets of blue splashed across her black gauntlets.

Under the scalding water, she watched Garrus' blood flow down the drain, and she leaned her forehead against the wall.

I've found him, and now I may lose him. Her fingers scratched at the metal confines of the shower. I don't think I can do this without him.

The new Normandy was beautiful, a sleek homage to her predecessor. A marriage of human and turian design, Joker's wildest wet dream. However, in the two months since she had regained consciousness, it had yet to feel like home. Her cabin was large and luxurious, complete with a giant fish tank that provided her ambient blue lighting when her lack of dreams shook her from restless sleep.

For the first time since waking up on the cold operating table in that Cerberus lab, Shepard felt fragile. There had been pain, yes. A sensation when learning to breathe again, lungs inflating on their own accord. The scars that covered her face, her arms, her legs, were proof to two years lost. Humpty dumpty sat on a wall, she recited the old Earth nursery rhyme in her mind as she shut the water off and stepped out. Humpty dumpty had a great fall. She wrapped a towel around herself, shivering.

All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again.

Except, they did.

Roused from the dead like some sort of Frankenstein Jesus, come again to save the galaxy. Commander fucking Shepard, savior of us all. She wrung her hair out on the rug and braided it back out of her face. Two years on an operating table had meant two years of neglected haircuts, and her brunette locks were out of Alliance regs.

But I'm not Alliance anymore. She threw on a clean uniform, took a steadying breath, and pinged the elevator.

"EDI," she said quietly. The AI's holographic interface flickered into view beside her. "Tell Jacob to meet me in the comm room. We need to discuss the last mission."

"Of course, Commander." The holo flickered off.

Time to ante up, Shepard.

In the comm room, she leaned against the table, the picture of calm and collected. Jacob entered through the door, data pad in hand.

"Commander, we've done everything we could for Garrus, but the damage was...extensive."

Her face betrayed nothing of what she was feeling, and merely replied with a curt nod.

"Doctor Chakwas repaired his injuries with surgery and some cybernetics," he continued, assessing her reaction. "We think he'll have full functionality, but-"

The door hissed open. Standing on the threshold in ragged blue armor, Garrus locked eyes with Shepard. She let herself smile, heart leaping in her chest.

"Nobody would give me a mirror," he groused, stepping into the room with his typical swagger. "How bad is it?"

After seeing his blood vibrant on her hands, mandible and throat mangled, he looked perfect to her. A white bandage covered most of the right side of his jaw, and his expressions look lopsided, only the left exposed. He flashed her the turian equivalent of a small smile, showing teeth.

"Hell, Garrus, you were always ugly," she said softly. Her mouth smiled around the words. "Slap some face paint on there and no one will notice." The vibrant blue clan markings that mapped his face looked stark against his grey skin. His demeanor lent nothing amiss, except the apprehension and pain in his eyes raked over her.

"Hah! Oh. Don't make me laugh." He gingerly touched the bandage with his hand. "My face is barely holding together as it is…" his left mandible flared into an unmistakable grin. "Although maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Some women find facial scars attractive. Of course, most of those women are krogan."

Jacob, unflappable as ever, shook his head at Garrus, saluted Shepard and made his exit. As the door hissed shut behind him, the atmosphere in the comm room thickened. Shepard straightened up, analyzing the turian in front of her. His armor was a disaster – the rocket impact had made the right side look like Swiss cheese, the proud Vakarian blue scraped away to reveal black ceramic underneath. His eyes swept over her, and she knew what he was thinking. Part of her wanted to reach out and touch him, but instead clasped her hands behind her back and cocked her head.

"Cerberus?" he spit the word out like an expletive. She could feel the tension radiating off of him in waves. Here was the Garrus she knew, rising above, reverting back into his C-Sec persona. This was an interrogation, one that she did not feel like participating in. Not with the image of his ruined face so fresh in her mind.

"It's a…long story," she said quietly. Behind her back, she balled her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms.

"I look forward to hearing it." It was his turn to cock his head at her, studying. He knew her, regardless of how hard she steeled herself against wayward emotions. She knew he was trying to get a read on her. It had been one of his habits, before. Shaking the emotions out of her, whether she wanted them to be known or not. "If you need me, I'll be in the forward battery."

"You and big guns," she said around a crooked smile.

He relaxed, and took a step towards her, hovering slightly, indecisive. "Oh Commander, you know I love my toys. Besides, these bastards probably screwed up the calibrations." With a cocky grin, he turned and left.

Her scent was the same. Garrus ran a hand along the console in the main battery, but only half of his mind was on algorithms. He could smell her tension, her exhaustion. And his blood on her. His face hurt, and he tried to piece together his journey back onto the Normandy. Searing pain, Shepard's hands on his face, her eyes wide in fear. Blood in his throat, metallic and hot. His calm and collected commander hovering over him, repeating his name.

Two years I've been drifting like a moon without a planet, and here you are.

For two years he had mourned the loss of his commander, his mentor, his best friend. Processing the fact that she was alive… he didn't know how to handle it. So many times he watched bullets ricochet off her armor, watched her line up a shot and take it so damn perfectly he would whoop in celebration. Her quiet, assessing demeanor was the same. Like the vids of those extinct panthers back on Earth, she could lie in wait, black armor shining, her body making a lithe line from her boots to the tip of her sniper rifle. Garrus had never thought humans to be predators, until he met Shepard.

"Officer Vakarian," EDI's holo blipped up on the console. "Doctor Chakwas would like me to remind you that you need to eat."

Garrus narrowed his eyes at the AI. "Oh yeah?" he quipped, gingerly touching his face again.

"She advises that your significant blood loss may lead to light headedness, vertigo and fatigue. She has recommended that Gardener prepare you an appropriate dextro-amino meal."

"Well, I guess I can't say no to a good meal. Probably beats the crap I've been eating on Omega."

"I would not count on it." EDI's holo disappeared.

Garrus shook his head and sighed. Fucking Cerberus.

The tension in the mess was palpable. Garrus could taste the apprehension rolling off of his shipmates. Ignoring them, he struck up a conversation with Mess Sargent Gardener, a gruff man with a wicked sense of humor and quick wit. If he had an aversion to alien crewmates, he did a good job hiding it. Mostly Garrus was thankful Gardener knew how to prepare dextro-amino food, regardless of how badly it tasted.

"It's all frozen rations and shit that comes in packets," Gardener said, passing Garrus a plate of lumpy brown mush. "Hopefully if we make a trip to the Citadel, I can talk Commander Shepard into spending some of Cerberus' credits on decent food."

"As long as you wash your hands after you clean the toilets, I'll eat whatever you cook," Garrus said. Eating with his sore face was slow going, and the texture of the food in front of him was sloppy and awkward.

"Ha ha. Turian has a sense of humor, apparently." Gardener brandished a spoon at him. "Keep it up and you can cook your own meals."

Garrus shook his head and flared his intact mandible. "Thanks, Gardener. Next time try and make it less sticky and more food-like." Gardener barked a laugh in reply.

Back in the battery, he sat on his cot, head in his hands. The food was a lump in his stomach, feeling heavy, and his face throbbed. How many hours has he been on the ship? A day? An eternity? He wanted to go looking for Shepard, but he knew better. Too many things needed to be discussed...and her head was somewhere else. A few of the crew in the mess had talked about the Illusive Man sending her dossiers, and Garrus snapped his teeth together at the mental image of her at her desk, nose buried in her terminal. No doubt studying everything in detail, combing through all the pros and cons.

He laid down and tried to sleep, but he was still too wired from the events of the day. He sat up and started shucking his armor, making a mental note to purchase something new the next time they were docked. Nimble fingers made quick work of the buckles on his gauntlets, and chest piece, until he was down to just his greaves, boots and thin, under layer of skinweave fabric. Dried blood was caked on his chest where it must have dripped off his injured face, pooled on the ridge of his keel bone. He grabbed a cleaning cloth and started to work, rubbing in circular, methodical motions. His right gauntlet was cracked almost all the way through. No doubt some internal reflex caused him to throw his hand up to block the rocket. Instead, he had caught it with his face.

Chuckling to himself, he picked up the chest piece and started to clean it, even though it too was beyond repair. Rotating the ceramic plate, something caught his eye in the dim light of the battery. A small hand print in dried blood shined up at him, and he closed his eyes, not even bothering to stifle the sad subvocal crooning that escaped through his teeth. Shepard, no doubt, trying to help him, frantic but not showing it, barking orders at Miranda and Jacob, holding his face together in her hands. He had smelled his blood on her in the comm room. A deep, primal part of him wondered what that shade of blue looked like against her tan skin.

The door hissing open made him jump. He stopped his assessment of his abused armor to look up at the figure in the doorway. His breath caught in his throat; her scent flooded the area and assaulted his senses. She was real, she was alive.

"Officer Vakarian," she said quietly, stepping into the room. She was dressed in uniform, all business. But he knew better. He could taste her tension in the air, and set his armor aside.

"Shepard." Her name sounded like a confession. For the second time in two years he said it out loud, savoring the way it rolled off his tongue.

"You look like hell." Her eyes swept across his face, down to his bloodied, armor-less chest. "May I?" she said, gesturing to a crate across from his cot.

"Your ship," he answered, flaring his good mandible in amusement. The atmosphere in the room dipped, becoming cold and tense. She was tightly wound, ready to snap. Every muscle in her body was taut, causing her shoulders to hunch, a very un-Shepard-like posture.

"Yeah. I guess it is." She settled herself lightly on the crate, crossing her legs. Garrus let himself relax a fraction, studying her.

"Look…Shepard…" he fumbled over his words, which only made his face hurt more. She held up a hand to silence him.

"Don't. I get it. Cerberus, the new Normandy, hell…me being alive…I don't know exactly what to say, but I get it. It's been two months for me and I still haven't been able to process it all."

"Two months?" his question sounded like an accusation, and he saw her flinch. "You've been back for two months and I didn't know. Damn, Shepard."

She gave him a pensive look. There was a flicker of emotion crossing her face; shame, maybe? It was difficult to tell with her. She was one who wore the proverbial commander mask, face wiped free of any emotion, calm, cool and confident. Always had been. He had made it his personal mission on the SR-1 to draw any semblance of reaction from her.

"You were too busy playing god on Omega to know."

"Hmm. Maybe I'll retract my statement. You may now refer to me only as Archangel." He shuffled his legs farther apart and leaned his elbows on his thighs.

"Over my dead body."

They both laughed, and he felt an invisible, magnetic pull. Her quiet, calm aura permeated his space, radiating energy. Garrus knew her better than anyone, but his body's reaction to her proximity was perplexing. How many times had they bunkered down under cover together, sharing space, knocking armored shoulders? They had perfected tossing her up to higher vantage points. He had watched her six while she prowled across open territory, SMG in hand. Her every movement had been etched in his memory, and kept him company on the dark nights when he wasn't quite sure what the hell he was supposed to be doing with himself.

"I asked about you," she said quietly. "The Illusive Man said even he couldn't track you down. I'm still trying to figure out if that was a lie, or that you're just such a badass at disappearing, even Cerberus couldn't find you." She cocked her head, and her braid fell forward heavily, hanging down across her shoulder. In her Alliance days, it had been pulled back in a tight knot at the nape of her neck. The flyaway bits softened the sharp angles of her face.

Shepard allowed herself to sigh, body slackening. "I can't do this without you, Garrus." Her confession rang in his ears, even though it was no more than a whisper. Never had she let the facade slip for him; she was cracking, shifting in so many ways he couldn't peg down one emotion from another.

"Of course you can't. Well, at least not as stylishly."

She smiled, and looked at him with those grey eyes. When she spoke, her voice was no more than a whisper. "I found you, and then I thought I was going to lose you."

He saw the shudder that ripped through her body, and every inch of him yearned to comfort her, even if he didn't know how. But he sat like a good turian, and let his commanding officer continue.

"I woke up on a table in a Cerberus lab, and everything hurt." She stood up and started to pace, clutching her arms around her chest. It perturbed him to see her so shaken, and instinctually he tensed, nervous. After two years of mourning, living with her shadow, giving life to her memory after all the booze was gone from the bottle, the smallest shred of him had clung to the hope that she was out there, somewhere. But this, a revelation that she had risen up against death itself; he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear it.

"I got spaced, Garrus. I was dead." Her eyes found his, and her shoulders shook with the sheer effort of holding herself together. "And then I woke up. Lawson and I made it out of the lab, and they gifted me with a new, improved Normandy and Joker as the bow on top." She tightened her hands into fists, and the scars across her knuckles glowing faintly, like hellfire encased in soft skin. "No time to process this, just 'Commander, defeat the Collectors. Commander, save the galaxy. Commander, try not to die, you're worth four billion credits'. I was dead, and I was brought back, and I have no idea what the fuck I am supposed to do."

Her eyes found his, filled with a dark, deep sadness that consumed every cell in his body. She was begging for him to help her, to tell her what to do, anything. Something in him snapped. Every restraint etched into his conscience fell away, and with it the stoicism he worked so hard to keep. With inhuman swiftness he crossed the space of the room, pulling her to him. Holding her made everything vivid, slipping into focus. For the first time since the destruction of the Normandy, he blinked, vision clearing. No more foggy edges of memories, no red-tinged hatred searing the back of his mind. Just her. Alive.

He was surprised when she didn't resist and let him support her weight. He rested his chin on the top of her head, her arms finding his waist, leaning her weight into him.

"You're Commander Shepard," he growled, subvocals adding a bass tone to his lament that vibrated through her body. "You don't have to know what to do. You just do it." She reached up to cup the injured side of his face, gently, and he leaned into her hand. A simple gesture that stripped the boundaries between them. I missed you, he thought, recalling the last time he had been this close to her. After Saren, when she said goodbye. Words exchanged over the top of half-full whiskey tumblers, promises made to keep in touch. A fleeting touch of her hand to his face, and a soft smile he had never seen before. In that hurried moment, he stopped thinking of her as merely his commander, turian stoicism be damned.

Her eyes softened and she smiled. "There's no Shepard without Vakarian."

"How else do you think you've made it this far?" he quipped, stepping away from her. "I've been dragging your ass out of the line of fire since we met."

"Yeah, yeah." She waved a hand dismissively, grinning. "Don't forget who saved your ass after you tried to eat a rocket."

"I have to say, it may have tasted better than whatever Gardener has been cooking…"

The last thing he heard was her laugh as the door closed behind her.