Disclaimer: All Mass Effect characters belong to Bioware, as well as all the plot from the games. Only what remains is mine.

Chapter 1: One last order

Numb. The thin metal plate felt icy through his cloves, but everything else just felt numb. This wasn't right. He couldn't hear a sound except for the constant pulsing of his own blood in his ears. This wasn't right. She couldn't be dead...

As if he was a puppet on strings he felt his feet move forward towards the memorial wall, where they all had gathered. No one spoke a word. Never before had the Normandy been this quiet. The cold of the metal plate felt as if it was about to burn his fingertips. Looking down the letters were blurry and didn't make any sense. This wasn't right. She couldn't be dead. She couldn't be at the bar before him.

On autopilot he levelled the plate to the wall. The clink of metal on metal reverberated through the ship like a gunshot and eventually sound came back. Still everything aboard the Normandy was silent, but the constant humming of the main engine fought its way through the numbness of his senses. Behind him several pairs of feet were shuffling, surely as overwhelmed by all of this as was he. Heavy sighs being suppressed and throats being cleared to fight back tears mirrored the emotions logic told him were raging to gain control over his numbness somewhere deep inside of him. Involuntarily his gaze wandered upwards to where the sky would be beyond the Normandy's various decks and his mandibles flexed in an inaudible sigh.

This wasn't right.

He knew he was supposed to feel empty. The galaxy was supposed to feel empty.

Yet...

At the far back of his consciousness besides the overwhelming numbness he'd swear he could almost feel the soft warmth of her breath on the sensitive skin of his neck, the slight tingle of her hair on his forehead, the electric sensation of her fingertips caressing his scars and all the while breaking through the faint echo of her voice, calling out for him, pleading him to find her, assuring him she was fulfilling his order.

'Spirits! What a fool he was! A fool to have loved, a fool to hope, a fool to be about to take actions that would most likely break him completely once and for all!

"Garrus?" A hoarse whisper full of tears both suppressed and flowing freely accompanied by the slender weight of a hand on his shoulder finally carrouseled him back into the present. The present in which the Normandy was stranded on a small tropical moon with no colony whatsoever, in which their allies were most likely scattered across half the galaxy, the mass relays destroyed and their commander – his love – most likely dead, no matter what false hope wanted them to believe.

At last Garrus let out a single sigh and squared his shoulders. He had work to do, duties to fulfill.

"Garrus", Liara cleared her throat and started anew, "I... If you want to talk to someone, I'll be there..." Her voice trailed off at the end, obviously as unable to fully process the events of the last days as was he. Turning towards her to answer, he noticed that they were alone, everyone else had seemingly trailed off already to busy themselves with the necessary repair works. Less time for thinking. Less time for tears.

Garrus' shoulders shrunk the tiniest bit, giving in to the thoughts hunting him: „You were her best friend, Liara. What do you think?" He didn't need to voice it all out. The asari understood.

„I can't think of any logical way, anyone could have survived that." The asari sighed, then she looked up at him, a bitter grin forming on her lips that was nevertheless full of the stoic determination she was priced for. "But then again, this is Shepard we're talking about. We all made the mistake to believe her dead, once. If you want to go looking for her, I'm with you no matter what may come from it. As soon as we've reinstated communications and contacted the fleet, we'll do everything in our power. We owe her that."

Numb. Numb and cold. That was about it. That was her world. That was her universe, interrupted only by shallow draws of oxygen sucked into her lungs and pushed out again slowly but steadily, keeping her heart pumping, keeping her blood pulsing. She still had one order to fulfil: 'Come back alive!'