Disclaimer: I don't own ME2, it belongs to Bioware

A/n: Wow, guys thank you for all the reviews, it made me feel really good to know that people enjoyed it. It gave me a good kick in the butt to get out a next chapter. Hope you like it!

When he'd seen her crossing that bridge on Omega pistol in hand, he'd thought he'd been hallucinating due to exhaustion. He'd tossed it up to his wild imaginings. His wild hopes. Sure, Shepard had always seemed this indomitable figure... but dead was dead. It was hard to come back from that.

But then the hallucination had started gunning down mercs, and Garrus was pretty sure he hadn't gotten quite so delirious that he'd be imagining that. And then there she was, in all her glory standing right in front of him. With two Cerberus agents in toe.

He'd put up a front when she'd come up the stairs to greet him. Like he hadn't a care in the world. It was a lie. He'd thought he was going to die; he had been resigned to it. And then there she was, like an angel to pull him back from the brink.

"Garrus!"

The happiness in he'd heard in her voice had made his heart wrench. It had been two long years of agony on his part, and it all of it fell away with the sound of his name on her delicate human lips.

When she'd died, he'd felt without purpose. He'd drifted and fallen apart just as surely as the Normandy crew itself had without her steady presence. And the Council had done everything within their power to make Shepard and her crew disappear into obscurity. He'd felt for Kaidan after she'd gone. But a part of him couldn't help the creeping jealousy within him that Alenko had been so much closer to the Commander than he'd ever been able to.

He'd had nowhere to go, but back to his old life. But C-sec had felt like a bad joke after all he'd done with Shepard. The job felt foreign and pointless. He simply wasn't the same C-sec officer he'd been before the Saren incident.

He'd always hated injustice, but back then had felt helpless to stop it. But then with Shepard...Shepard had always done something about it.

He'd lost himself in anger at the unfairness of the universe. Killers, rapists, and thieves thrived everywhere he looked. Why did they get to live, when Shepard didn't?

He'd idolized her from the start. Commander Shepard was the epitome of a hero. She was unlike any human he'd ever encountered before. Loyal to the human Alliance, yes, but she held no grudges toward aliens like the other Alliance soldiers clearly did. Like Ashley had. She'd accepted him onto her ship with open arms. It didn't matter that he was a turian. The First Contact War didn't linger in her mind like most. She trusted people. She trusted them until they gave her a reason not to. It was one of many things that he'd silently admired about her. It was something he'd tried to replicate on Omega. But he was no Shepard, that was painfully clear to him now. He'd trusted the wrong person. And now his whole crew was dead and the blame lay solely on his shoulders.

He'd wondered if he'd ever trust anyone again. Then Shepard was there to save his life in more ways then one. She'd asked for his help in return. She needn't have even asked. He wouldn't have had it any other way. And he didn't care that she was working for Cerberus. She could have been commanding a dilapidated tug-ship manned only by Terra Firma supporters and he would have followed her.

Garrus had denied his feelings for the human woman for a long time, during their time together aboard the first Normandy and after, because they were foolish. And she only had eyes for Alenko anyway. To Liara's dismay as much as his. And he'd tried to convince himself that he didn't find humans particularly attractive...but then she wasn't just any human...

He shook his head. It was silly. And he knew it.

Garrus couldn't deny that it had torn him up inside when she'd died. He'd seen the Normandy ripped in two by a Collector vessel and he'd lost more than just a Commander and a good friend that day.

He'd told himself so many times afterward that if he'd only been given a second chance he'd have done something, anything, to let Shepard know how he felt. And on Omega, it was like his wish had been granted... but he couldn't bring himself to say a damn word. Coward.

And like any coward he'd convinced himself that doing nothing was the right course of action. Shepard deserved someone better than his disillusioned wreck of a self. She didn't need some scarred-to-shit turian chasing her around like a domesticated varren. She probably didn't even think of him like that anyway. Hell, he questioned his own sanity that he thought of her as more than a close friend. It was just so wrong. And impossible. A hopeless crush. So, he'd decided to leave it like that; as something unattainable & unrequited.

Then Horizon happened. He was so angry at Kaidan that he wanted to throttle the human's fragile little neck. Kaidan had what Garrus so desperately wanted, and he had spat in her face. Shepard deserved better than that. She didn't betray anyone, least of all Kaidan Alenko.

She'd be the last person in the galaxy to knowingly betray someone. It was Kaidan who was the traitor. It was like he didn't even know what he had in Commander Shepard.

And then Jack had opened her mouth on the shuttle.

What a disaster. Shepard couldn't even look at him for the rest of the ride back to the Normandy. Clearly Shepard was disgusted by the crazy biotic's suggestion. And why shouldn't she be?

Garrus sighed to himself while standing above the main battery's computer console.

He resolved that he would at least see that Shepard had a loyal friend at her side. Garrus would stand up for her. He could do that much. He didn't trust Cerberus' intentions in the slightest. He'd been there with Shepard at the testing facilities with the creepers and the rachni. He knew what they were capable of. He was worried about her. And Garrus wasn't about to let Shepard get herself killed again.

Shepard came around to visit him often in the main battery. He had to confess he looked forward to their talks, even while simultaneously dreading the pain dredged up by them. Garrus saw something in those strangely large human eyes of hers. He wasn't completely adept at reading human emotions, but he'd spent enough time with Shepard and her crew on the previous Normandy to know that she wasn't about to stop asking about what happened on Omega and just let it go.

She was worried about him, concerned. Shepard may have been able to ferret out of him most of the details of his situation on Omega, but he couldn't talk about his feelings. Couldn't talk about his guilt or how he wanted to see Sidonis flayed alive. Garrus was normally so closed off to people, but she opened him up like a cadaver on a coroner's table, but not in this instance.

But this wasn't like before. He couldn't talk about everything to anyone, and her especially. It was all too painful. It was like he'd failed her as much as his own crew. When he'd been on Omega facing his death and wallowing about his crew's deaths... he'd thought that he'd failed her memory. He wanted Sidonis to pay. He wanted to see his brain blown out the back of his skull from the vantage point of his scope.

Shepard came by and Garrus knew that she wanted to talk about it more. She was too caring and too perfect. And he was too flawed and too damaged.

She asked if he could talk. Garrus feigned a look behind him toward the console.

"Can it wait, for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations."

She looks anything but convinced, but lets it slide.

Shepard smiles lightly before leaving, "I'll talk to you later, Garrus."

Garrus turned back to his console, but glanced over his shoulder to see her walking away. He felt a sense of desperation in that moment. He needed her to know that he's was there for her.

His mouth opens and words fail him. He settles on a, "I'll be here if you need me." and curses himself for his inability to tell the woman the truth about everything.