Author's Notes: This is my first Mass Effect story. I've scoped this fandom for a while and there are loads of great authors so consider me intimidated. I couldn't help to write this after picking Alenko on Virmire and letting Ashley die. I just cannot let psychological consequences go.

10/15/2014: Edited to remove some italics and correct spelling.

Garrus swung open the door to the Mako.

One of Shepard's green eyes squinted in the light coming from the empty hangar to see who had found her. She sat with her elbows resting on her knees, head hung low. Swiftly and without a word she went back to staring at her feet.

Garrus still stood holding the door open. Lack of speech indicated to Shepard that, clearly, he hadn't expected to find her there.

He asked, "Want to be alone or think you need to be alone but don't really want to?"

She didn't look up at him but smiled, surprised at how fast and accurately he had read her. The tears and sobs of rage and impotence had ran their course a while ago and Shepard's face was dry but red and tear-streaked. She hadn't expected anybody to find her but now that Garrus had, she didn't have the strength to care.

"You were the best detective in the whole of C-Sec, weren't you?"

Still holding the door, Garrus shifted his position a bit, demure. "Well, yes. I was. I'm your detective now, though. What is that for, Shepard?" He asked with practised calm.

She was holding a Lancer in her hands, pointing up. Safety on, clip empty. But he didn't know that. She could see Garrus talking his way into letting any jittery merc with a hostage put down his gun. He had the soothing voice for it. He had the eyes for it, too. Steady.

"It's not what I think you think this is, Garrus. I would never do that." That her behavior could implicate such a thing jolted her, she hadn't been aware of how the situation might look from the outside.

"It's...um...I picked it up." Her voice was hoarse. A fresh tear slid down her cheek when she blinked. She gestured to her left with her head, she couldn't even finish a damned sentence.

Garrus looked back at the table where Ashley Williams worked, then looked back at her. "I see."

Shepard dried the tear with her sleeve and sniffled. Damn it, she thought she was over with the tears, talking made it worse.

"She kept them so very clean." Shepard stared at the Lancer in her hands. "Come in if you want, Garrus." There was no point in hiding from him. "But close the door behind you, please."
No point in anybody else seeing her like this, though. Especially not Kaiden, who felt guilty enough already. If he saw her like this, he might even start to think she regretted her choice. He had enough survivor's guilt already.

Garrus came in and sat on the driving seat. He closed the door behind him. His visor filled the Mako with blue light. He noticed the broken control panel. He stared at it. His plates flared a bit - surprised, she surmised.

She had smashed it during the worst of her fit of utter impotence. She had imagined it was Udina's back-stabbing weasel-face. Her knuckles were sore. She felt a bit contrite now, under Garrus's stare. He always kept such good care of the Mako.

"I'm sorry," she started, "I'll fix-"

Garrus lifted a hand to stop her. "I kicked my terminal to pieces and then picked the biggest pieces of that and hurled them at the wall when they told me Saren was off-limits. Then I kicked the other pieces and broke more of my stuff." He shrugged. "We could fill the Mako up with rotten fish from that sushi place and leave it on Udina's office doorstep. We could rig it to explode."

She gave him a wan smile.

He paused for a while. "There was no right decision, Shepard. You and I both know that."

She twisted the rifle in her hand, noticing how it shined in the faint blue light. It smelled like new, too, although it wasn't. Ashley had explained she used "a secret family recipe" to clean guns when Shepard had taken a whiff of her Tsunami once. Ashley herself had smelled a bit of it, maybe because she used it so much.
The scent filled Shepard with intense guilt. Remembering how she always called her Skipper made her close her eyes.

Shepard had told Kaiden what he had needed to hear back at the post-mission briefing but since then all she'd done was frantically evade everyone in her way, she needed to find a place like the Mako where she could fall apart and put herself back together without affecting the crew.

"I made a mistake, I don't know where. I made a mistake and she died. I made a mistake. She died." She lowered the rifle and set it down tenderly, butt on the floor. She propped her chin on her hands and kept staring at the Lancer. "I can't see it. There had to had been a different strategy. So I didn't have to choose. I could've waited or I could've..."

Garrus didn't say anything, and she suspected that him being military somehow gave him the sense to know he couldn't convince her it wasn't her fault. Soldiers died. It was that simple. She knew that, too.

Shepard continued, "I spoke to Abby, Ash's oldest sister."

Garrus sighed and it sounded almost like a reprimand. "You didn't have to do that now, Shepard. You've gone through enough."

She sensed he'd made a few next of kin calls himself. "I told her" -she sniffed- "I told her her sister was a hero. That it had been an honor to serve with her. That she'd died defending the galaxy from our greatest threat."

Garrus nodded slowly. "All true."

Shepard half-snorted, half-choked on a fresh sob. "No, no it's not. Because of Udina, because of the Council, she died for nothing. She died so the Council could bury their heads in the sand until Saren comes and slaughters them all. I lied to her family. She died for nothing."

A fresh tear fell clean from her face, onto the rifle. Made a soft plop clearly heard in the silence of the Mako. Shepard pulled down on her sleeve and cleaned the rifle until it was dry and shiny again. She remembered how little trust Ashley had had in the Council.

"I asked Udina to give Ashley the Star of Terra. I wanted to end that senseless stigma her family had. You knew about that, about her grandfather?" Garrus nodded. "You know what he told me?"

"I gather something like, not worth making Virmire too public," Garrus guessed.

Shepard nodded. "That's exactly what he said. The Salarians are giving her the Silver Dagger, hell, they recognize what she did." She looked at him, "Was it always like this at C-Sec?"

"More or less, when the Council and politics was concerned," he said.

"You did warn me. I trusted them. I didn't have to like them. That's how it's been all my life. Good little soldier. But I didn't expect...to be used this way. I hate it." She was a soldier, she recognized what she was, but there were honorable ways to use a soldier and then there despicable, self-serving ways.

"Shepard. Listen." Garrus shifted his weight to face her. He was very serious.

She turned to face him.

"I thought my fight with Saren was over. Then I met you. And we've made that bastard's life so much harder, I didn't think it would be possible to screw him over so much, so fast. He's not sitting pretty anymore, thanks to you. I might not know you for a long time but I know I'm not wrong when I say this: you are unconquerable."

Shepard frowned. A long time ago, during the now famous Quiet Night at Elysium during the Blitz, Shepard sat behind a reinforced crate with Eddie Henley. Same age as her, had gone through basic with him and been on shore leave as well. Their cups of horrible coffee steamed up to warm their cold faces. He told her, "Shep. Shep, I might die in five seconds but I have to tell you something."

She'd swatted his helmet. Eddie was a notorious fake-horndog, he'd suggest you do with him the dirtiest things; take him up on one offer, though, like she had, and he turned into a schoolgirl. She thought he was about to suggest they do something behind the crates to use the downtime properly. The silence from the Batarians was unnerving them all.

But his face grew serious. Her smile faded.

Eddie continued, in a whisper, there were other soldiers not far away, he didn't want them to listen. "I'm not happy the captain died soon after the shit hit the fan and we rescued the civilians. He was too full of himself, but not too bad, as far as COs go...during peacetime. I'm not happy he died the way he did. But fuck, I am relieved."

Shepard brows furrowed. "Eddie-?"

"Shep, he didn't know what to do. I'm not the only one that noticed it. You were as scared as we were but you did know what to do. You always do. They," he pointed in the direction of the Batarian camp not far away, "they cannot conquer us, Shepard. Not if you lead us."

"Shepard?" It was Garrus voice. Here in the present.

She felt like Garrus and Eddie had put back into place the first piece of her that had shattered when Ashley died. Other pieces were on the floor still but now she felt she could put them back on. This wasn't over.

"I'm here," she said with a small, tired smile. She looked at him for a long time before saying, "Thank you, Garrus."

He waved a hand. "Next time you want to break something, and piss the Council off, let me know, Shepard. I have a sweet little spot, we can break about 150 regulations at once and also confirm that I am the best shot."

The End

I try my best not to be a review-hungry varren but I fail. I am.