I apologize if this chapter is rather long winded, but I felt there was a lot that
Need to be aired on Garrus' side - so that's why the plot hasn't really gone any farther.
Next chapter things will really get going, it was just getting too long I felt, so I cut it short here.
In any case, please enjoy.
Lyrics by Lifehouse.

"I miss the years that were erased
I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face
I miss all the little things
I never thought that they'd mean everything to me…"

Chapter 2.

It'd been six full days since Horizon.

Six days since Garrus had seen Shepard slow down enough to rest against a bulkhead or talk to the crew besides giving Joker coordinates, only exchanging clipped words with the people who gave her pause in passing.

She'd only aimed a curt nod at him once during that time before disappearing into the elevator, brows knitted, corners of her lips drawn together in an expression of engrossment while perusing a small stack of data pads she'd held.

He'd remained there for some time after she'd gone; his own brow ridges knitted in thought.

Her endurance was remarkable, never once did she cease her hectic pace, barking orders and flitting about the ship with her familiar sauntering stalk as though she were about to bear down on existence and center all her will on any possibility of failure – and there were lots of possibilities.

Even so, the former C-Sec officer knew first hand that the spectre had the most unusual ability of being able to bend anyone, anything to her cause if it stood in her way long enough.

In some ways, she was much like a stone thrown into the center of a rapidly running river and ordered to change its course, knowing full well the implication of impossibility yet understanding with calculating clarity, that nature determined the rivers flow, that any attempts to reason with it would merely end with being swept away.

But Shepard, Shepard was methodical, and just like the stone in the center that would slowly amass help – sticks, branches, debris; so the Commander collected soldiers, mercenaries and assassins – eventually turning the tide by making new streams, new options, and new avenues.

Some would say it wasn't natural, but nothing was natural about Commander Shepard except her will to live, and even that was susceptible to question – being pronounced dead and then reappearing two years later had a way of doing that, after all.

It was mind boggling really.

Of all people in the galaxy, she was the one person capable of doing what shouldn't be possible, again simply because she possessed the will of thousands in one, seemingly frail body, and the analytical mind that could put many turian scholars to shame.

The woman could face countless geth with brutal, military efficiency, snipe fatal trajectories when breaking cover for a breadth of time, combat innumerable odds with liquid grace and come out victorious, barely touched, but this, this wasn't like that at all, this was wearing on her – and Garrus had to admit, he was worried.

She'd spent days combing the ship, an ocean wave washing up against the hull – testing its strength, feeling for cracks and weak points, her lashes at half mast when she thought no one was looking. She hadn't slept much if at all, in the passing days, if the glimpses of fatigue and frustration he noticed when she swept by were any inclination.

They hadn't made port anywhere since either, but he'd found that most of the crew didn't pay it any mind – speculating that perhaps the Commander was just wound up over the first contact with the Collectors, the elusive, rather repulsive race that had so far successfully eliminated thousands of humans from their colonies for an unknown, most certainly ugly, purpose.

Hell, the thing was …

No one knew better.

No one had the privilege of knowing her before Cerberus, before being spaced, before having to start from square one with a brand new crew (bar a few exceptions, himself included). Only he and Joker were privy to how Shepard could be, and Garrus was willing to bet the pilot had his own hunches as to the Commander's ruthless acquisition of intelligence and nonstop attitude lately, but he'd never broach them seriously unless he thought it necessary – Joker knew full well what it was like to touch on a sensitive subject – Vrolics Syndrome notwithstanding.

So where did that leave off?

Ah right, that left him – Garrus, to keep an eye out, and he'd found it easier than he'd imagined. It was as though the two years he'd spent in hell hadn't happened at all when he watched her – everything was so hauntingly familiar.

It was in the way she brushed inquiries off with a shrug and a painless smile, the way she threw herself into tasks with renewed vigor that gave her away. There was no need to ask to be sure, he knew what she was doing intimately; he'd been doing it for the past two years after all – avoiding the … what was that fascinating human saying again? Avoiding the elephant in the kitchen? Stepping over the cat on the carpet?

He'd scoffed inwardly, turning over in his almost too small cot. The answer was irrelevant; he simply knew what it was like – the bypassing of an open sore, the need to tread around it completely for fear of falling apart at the seams.

Thankfully, Garrus recognized the pattern she was going through, he'd seen her go through a similar process two years ago after Gunnery Chief Williams died; emotion was pushed to the background to be later processed at a convenient time or not at all, all while steamrolling continuously forward – the evidence of its toll only rarely visible in eddying azure orbs when she stopped to trace the distant stars out the cold airlocks.

This time though, the turian's need to speak up had driven him to nights of tossing and turning, thoughtful blue eyes staring up at vents and ducts from his cot in the main battery, (he found sleeper pods entirely uncomfortable due to his size), deciding whether to approach the complexity that was the Commander about it - replaying the days in his mind.

After the attack on the colony, the Commander had thrown herself into assisting Mordin with bringing the dead collector bodies onboard for study, oozing, reeking flesh and all, (much to the dismay of the cleanup crew that had to salvage as much bodily refuse per Mordin's explicit orders) – spending the time when she and the salarian weren't marveling over the intricacies by cleaning armor and weapons and making visits to Anderson – giving him the information they had so far surmised that the council refused to heed.

He didn't even want to get started on that.
It was pathetic really, plain, goddamn bureaucratic crap.

In truth, the council's decision (or lack of one) on whether to spread the knowledge of an impending galactic genocide wasn't really any of Garrus' concern, in fact, the way they so gracelessly backslid on the reaper threat was understandable to some very, very small degree had they not pissed on Shepard's grave afterwards.

Now that was his concern

It was ineffable how they disillusioned everything the Commander (who'd pulled their ungrateful asses out of the fire), stood for, fought for, suffered through – instead turning her into some loon (though he still didn't know exactly what that meant) duped by Saren and tweaked a few too many times by Cerberus. After all she'd done for them, after all she'd done for galactic civilizations everywhere; all they could say was that maybe the only woman doing something to save the galaxy was crazy with a capital C.

Just thinking about it got a rise out of him, but back when it had really mattered, when it was fresh, he hadn't found the drive to do anything about it - bureaucratic shit was even more unappealing when the person slandered was dead, spaced dead.

It still gave him unexpected chills when he thought about it.

When he'd heard she'd died … that there was no coming back, no emerging from the rubble with a grin and a limp, he'd felt as though he'd been spaced along with her.

The Normandy was disintegrated, gone, space toast per say (he'd only learned what toast was recently when Shepard had alarmed him by nearly lighting the place on fire to get what wound down to cooked bread), and the crew had dissipated along with it.

No one mistook why.

No one tried to regroup on another ship and continue on.
They had all been apart of Shepard's crew, hers, and without her, they were nothing, nothing but jagged puzzle pieces and stunned revelations. And so, each one of them went their separate ways, carrying with them little pieces of laughter and close calls, arguments and fond memories - shadows that kept them avoiding eye contact as they left.

He'd tried to go back to C-Sec, but having spent so long under a spectre and being accustomed to doing things the right way, (even if it went against the law or bypassed necessary paperwork), he'd found, unsurprisingly, that he didn't fit and had left shortly afterward. He'd even considered applying for spectre status, but had come to the glum conclusion that the mantle would only infringe on his already questionable mental stability, the conscience that focused solely on her - the lack of her.

And so, his presence of mind had brought him to the "piss hole," as Miranda had so eloquently put it, knowing there was no red tape to get in the way of the possibility that maybe there was some good to be scrounged out on Omega, even though no one would have ever combined the words "good" and "Omega" in the same sentence.

He'd settled in easily enough, and kicking batarian and vorcha ass hadn't seemed so bad at first – and it hadn't. By cleaning the slums, he felt as though he were following in the Commander's footsteps, footsteps erased by an ocean's swell, (or in this case remnants of Collector induced ash) but… footsteps nonetheless.

He'd been a fool.

In an effort to regain what he'd lost, Garrus had assembled a team, a group he recruited simply by replicating Shepard's tactics - he showed people that he got things done, sabotaged some drug trains, shot a few bad guys and hey - in return, he gained respect and the title "Archangel." Recruits had begun materializing out of the dark, grey streets to join his cause, and before he knew it (though days, and months seemed to blur together) he'd been outfitted with a well working squad.

For awhile, it had helped, had eased him with familiar goings-on, of making a difference no matter how small – it had helped him forget until it had all come shattering down around him in bloodstains and gun shots. That day had been a harsh realization that nothing would ever amount to Shepard; that he could not amount to anything close to her. If he'd been her… surely he would have seen Sidonis' betrayal coming, surely …

But that's not why he was here, no, the council could go dance on a krogan burial ground for all he cared, and Sidonis, well... he had a bullet with his name on it. He was here, on the new Normandy, because of her, because she had asked him to rejoin her team, to rejoin her.

The startling illusion of her cutting her way through gun smoke, tendrils of hair clinging to her porcelain features, eyes alight from adrenaline and harsh military efficiency, still smote him - hard.

After he'd gotten over the fact that she wasn't some final, hopeful delusion on Omega, some part of him had exhaled a shaky breath for what felt like the first time in two years, muscles relaxing under her command, committing himself to follow her without her even needing to open her mouth, that intriguing set of lips and white teeth.

He'd gotten sloppy after that, mind working in weary, feverish circles, telling him how much he wanted to embrace her, to finally just, let go for the first time in weeks, or was it months? He'd just been so tired, and seeing her again had made the gravity of all he'd been keeping at bay seep into his bones – her face eddying in the darkness as he'd sunk into unconsciousness after being unceremoniously shot down.

It was her voice that brought him back, the panic he could still hear when he closed his eyes, the scent of fear that had washed over her when she'd rolled him over – seamlessly amazing him by her touch even as he'd lain on the closest thing to a deathbed he'd ever been on.

It was just who she was, she was the sort of person whose complexity stunned you in a way that only came from someone who could laugh easily among the crew at dinner, cracking jokes, and snipe krogan and melee husks by morning - the fascinating swirl of death, sorrow, and life in azure irises that could wake him from his nightmares, his breath coming in harsh pants, droplets of cold sweat trickling over hot skin.

He could've blinked and convinced himself no time had elapsed - when he was here, standing across from her, it was as though two years hadn't passed at all. Nothing noticeable had changed, she still had the same lake shore blue eyes, the silken, military styled hair and lean frame, and when she noticed him watching, a soft smile flickered across her lips whenever he happened to look her way (which was rather often he'd admit), worried she'd vanish into the haze of those two years spent in darkness.

She'd been making tea the whole time he thought about this, about why he was here and the urge to broach the subject that had spurred him unto this state – the person that had set change into motion when nothing had ever been able to change Shepard before - Lieutenant Alenko.

Garrus had always been somewhat jealous of their close bond but had tucked those sentiments away because it was completely understandable – he couldn't have blamed the Lieutenant for wanting after Shepard anymore than he could have told him to live without breathing – it was just one of those things.

Out of curiosity, he had thought about what it would be like to be involved with Shepard himself, but had turned it down with haste - he was turian after all, and he'd never had a thing for humans – they were too soft and fleshy, too easy to break. Not to mention the whole intimate thing…

He remembered how his brow ridges had drawn together, mandibles twitching in exasperation as he'd thought on it, his lapse resulting in a fumbled omnitool command that had then gone and short circuited the old Mako's shield generators, frying the panels to the point where he'd have to start all over. Swearing profusely, he'd shaken the tingle of electricity from his talons – finding himself irritated by Wrex who had chuckled his dark, sarcastic laughter from across the hangar before aiming a few, joking jabs at turian anatomy and their inability to "fix" things, before he'd lumbered over and given him a hand.

He'd never thought about it again.

Now though, now he realized he'd put the thought away so quickly because it mattered to him, really mattered. The two years of her absence had made him uncomfortably aware of just how much she'd meant to him, not just as a Commander, and a good one at that, but as a friend.

Over the years, he'd come to regret not spending as much time with her as he'd have liked, but he'd told himself that she was better off with Alenko anyway. After all, it was nearly impossible to miss the lingered touches, the way Kaiden's eyes would follow her on a mission, the simple way they interacted...

Garrus had always been able to scent the admiration and intrigue at a distance, feeling the flutter of envy when he made her laugh; instead forcing himself to feel happy for her, content that she had someone who cared, someone who really cared.

Horizon had changed all of that though, and Alenko would regret it one day.

Regardless, the lieutenant was the reason for this unplanned, midnight rendezvous - Garrus across the counter, Shepard busy making some human drink, irises becoming liquid warmth for the first time in six days as they exchanged banter - he wanted to let her know that Alenko was a fool for letting her go.

So here he was, about to tell her something she most likely didn't want to hear at the potential cost of the quiet understanding they had of one another.

He'd do it for her, at the cost of himself. He'd do it because she'd brought him back, she had the quads to drag his ass out of the slums of Omega, out of what would have been the resting place of his broken body, and damn if he wouldn't try to drag her from her brutal reveries – she deserved that much.

Blue eyes met blue, each tracing memories and the sorrows of lost time, steam curling between them from her mug as he softened, resigned.

"I wanted to talk to you."

He began.

If you catch any mistakes, feel free to inform me.
After reading things so many times, one tends to miss little things.
~