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omniblades-and-stars · 7 months

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The Way

Part i. | Part ii. | Part iii.

iii.

It’s uncanny, really. How does she always manage to show up just when things are going to the worst kind of shit and everything seems like it’s going to burn to the ground?

She’s like that. A beacon of hope.

It’s in the way that she holds herself like a respectable, serious soldier when she’s dealing with his people. When he sees her, on the very same moon he’s fighting for his life on of all places, talking to General Corinthus, he couldn’t be more proud.

She’s stoic, reserved, her shoulders are squared back, not threatening, she’s just standing like soldiers are expected to. Her gaze never leaves Corinthus while she is speaking to him. “Just tell me where to find Victus, and I’ll do it,” she says matter-of-fact. Because she’s the kind of woman who just gets things done, even when it’s not even close to her job to do it.

She waits until they’re far out of earshot of any soldiers high enough in the chain-of-command to care before she drops the hardened soldier act. “Garrus, I was so worried I wouldn’t see you again. When they hit Earth … It was so much worse than I thought it would be.”

And he knows she’s under exaggerating, because she thought it was going to be bad, but the catch in her voice tells him everything he needs to know.

The situation on Earth is as bad, or worse, as Palaven.

And she almost didn’t make it out.

It's in the way that she missed him. The very second the Primarch is settled in and she's dealt with … whatever's going on with EDI, she strides into the gun battery and locks the door. She's already shrugging out of her dress blues before he can even turn around. One of her shoes goes flying somewhere past his head as she hops up and down, kicking her legs to get out of her pants. She looks ridiculous.

"You'd think the Alliance could spring for fabric that isn't a nightmare for the dress uniforms, but it's like they actually paid extra to have the itchiness sewn right in."

"What are you doing, Shepard?" He asks while chuckling and reaching for the clasps on his armor. He knows, because it's not like she's being subtle.

She has a lot of strong suits, but subtlety isn't one of them.

She stops her hopping, the leg of her pants is stuck on her foot, and she smiles. "I've been stuck in a room for six months. If you think that I'm going to wait a second longer to touch you again, you've lost your damn mind. You're lucky I waited this long. Your human girlfriend was this close to causing an intergalactic incident by jumping you in the middle of a tactical meeting with high ranking officers." She manages to yank herself free of the pant leg, her sock going along with it.

He's pretty sure he'll never get used to her calling herself his girlfriend.

"There are worse ways to cause a diplomatic nightmare," he says as the pieces of his armor fall to the ground. He's not generally so blasé about his gear, but … Well …

If you had the Commander Shepard stripping in your quarters, you wouldn't care about scratches or dents on your chest plate either, now would you?

She pushes him to the cot he's set up in the battery and climbs onto his lap. Her hands are all over him, and his are all over her. Her arms are bigger, he notices. In fact, it seems like she's bulked up a little all over. Not that she was ever a small-framed woman, but he can tell she’s been working on what she used to joke with Ash and Kaidan about as “glamor muscles”.

He likes it.

She must notice how he's touching her because she says, "Didn't have a lot to occupy myself with, so I spent a lot of time working out with James." Her explanation is broken up by the kisses she's planting all over his face and neck.

"Oh, so you spent a lot of time with Vega, huh? He seems … nice," Garrus teases. He knows he has nothing to worry about. Shepard isn't that kind of girl. "Attractive, for a human."

"Who, James? Sure, he's cute, in the way a lost puppy's cute." She presses her forehead to his and smiles against his mouth, "He's a beefcake, but lucky for you, Garrus Vakarian, I prefer my men … bony." She flicks one of his plates for emphasis.

"So you still think you're funny?" He chuckles into her neck.

"I know I'm funny," she answers smugly. But then she grows quiet and still, and he looks up at her to see that her brows are knit together. She's chewing on her lip, and it looks like she's holding back tears. "Missed you, Big Guy," she says quietly.

"Spirits, I missed you too." Understatement of a lifetime, he thinks.

She presses herself against him, somehow getting closer despite how she was already against him, and she sighs. She's clinging to him with her whole body, and she's so warm and he's missed her so much he never wants to let go.

This time is slow and sweet. They just need to touch.

It’s in the way she stands on her principles, even in the face of a galaxy that is telling her, “No, that’s insane!” He's not there when she marches back into the conference room to give the Dalatrass a piece of her mind.

But he hears about it. Primarch Victus recounts it dryly, with very little detail. His version is probably closer to the truth, but Wrex's version is far more entertaining.

"So she stomps back in there and lifts the Dalatrass by her robes and shouts, 'Don't you think your people have done enough to fuck up the galaxy? Now I'm going to fix your mistakes, bitch.' And then she headbutts her," Wrex retells the story with incredible, bombastic exaggeration (and several outright lies). "If I didn't know any better, I'd think she was a tiny krogan herself. She's got quad." He has to agree, she is ballsy.

Garrus is pretty sure Shepard did not headbutt the salarian Dalatrass.

Spirits, he hopes she didn't headbutt the salarian Dalatrass.

It's in the way she mourns. She's red-faced, while gut wrenching sobs wrack her body as she stands with her forehead pressed against the memorial wall on the crew deck. She's holding a plaque bearing the name "Thane Krios" in her hands. She tried to slide it next to Mordin's but her hands are shaking so badly that she's given up.

"They should have had more time," she says barely above a whisper. "Mordin, Thane … fuck," her voice cracks and he turns her so she can bury her head against his chest. The plaque goes crashing to the ground and she clutches at whatever handholds she can find on his armor. "He should have had more time with Kolyat."

Thane's death hits her hard. Not only because they were friends, though they were close. Her parents died when she was a teenager. She mourns for the pain Kolyat feels as much as her own. It's a pain she knows all too well.

Garrus understands. There's never enough time with them.

He misses his mom.

It's in the way that her reckless disregard for her own life drives him insane. She jumps into an untested diving mech without a second thought and disappears beneath the surface before he can utter more than a sentence begging her not to.

The waiting makes him crazy. She's not responding on the hailing frequency. And they literally have no way to mount a rescue if something's gone wrong. He's so tense he might just start taking potshots at the crashed cruiser they've landed on. He's pacing, Ash is pacing, and Cortez is desperately trying, and unfortunately failing, to keep the two of them level headed about it.

At least there's occasional drops of Reaper troops to keep him somewhat occupied. He's seconds away from leaping into the water himself.

And then another pulse happens, and the waters around them start to wave. And as if he has not already seen enough once-in-a-lifetime crazy things for several lifetimes, he sees something to top them all. Rising from the water is an enormous creature that looks eerily similar to some of the Reaper ships.

And then another.

He's not sure what Shepard is doing under there, but it has to be "batshit" insane, as she would call it. Because what's happening topside is damn near incomprehensible. On top of the sea monsters leaving the ocean and taking to space flight right before his very confused eyes, the remaining Reaper forces are turning on each other, suddenly oblivious to their presence.

Minutes later the mech bursts up from the depths and Shepard stumbles out, and immediately loses consciousness. She comes back to in the shuttle, there is blood all over the lower part of her mouth smeared from the intense nosebleed she must have had.

"Shepard, are you alright?" he asks, grasping her shoulders. His grasp on his sanity is slipping and the longer she doesn't answer, the closer he comes actually flipping out.

She coughs and then smiles, it looks a little delirious, too goofy to be appropriate for what's been happening. "Yeah … yeah. Just um … just partied too hard with the ultra-ancient progenitors of the Reapers. Worked out though."

He's so relieved, so charmed by her ability to laugh even in the face of the impossible, and so, so very upset with her. He pulls her into his arms, and she's all but dead weight still. "Never do that again," he says into her hair. He wishes he never had to let go.

"You say that like I'm always doing insane deep sea dives."

"Shepard," he groans.

"You know I can't promise not to take risks like that, Garrus. But … I'll try to be smarter about it."

He knows it's really all he can ask. It still drives him crazy.

It's in the way she does the impossible again and again. The quarians and the geth seem intent on killing each other and destroying themselves in the process. But then she's standing between Legion and Tali, and she does it. She convinces the quarian fleet to stop their offensive and just like that … a battle hundreds of years in the making is over.

Legion is gone, but the rest of the geth are offering to help with the fight against the Reapers and to help the quarians rebuild their homeworld.

And so quarians have their homeworld again. All in a day's work, apparently.

Tali takes off her helmet. She breathes the unfiltered air of the home she never thought she would have. She feels the wind on her uncovered face.

She is home.

How can one woman be at the center of so much good in the galaxy? She puts everything she's got into making the universe a better place.

And more confounding of all, why does she want to be with him?

He doesn't understand it, but Spirits, he's glad she does.

It's in the way that she sleeps. She curls around his body and throws a leg over him, trapping him beneath her sleep-deadened weight. He doesn't mind it. In fact, he cherishes it.

She holds him tighter when she has the nightmares. And they come more and more often. Her hands twitch like she's trying to grab something, and she whispers, "I'm sorry," in a barely intelligible slur. Thessia hit her hard.

There are nights, rare though they are, where she sleeps peacefully. He manages to pry himself free without waking her to get something to drink. When he returns from the bathroom, she's sprawled out, her hair fanned out over her pillow, and quite frankly, a tangled mess.

The soft blue light from the aquarium plays over her skin, and Spirits, she just looks so soft. Even in the midst of all of this terror, the heartbreak, the impossible odds, his heart is full.

He sends her a message:

It's late. Just got up for some water. You're still asleep. Wanted to say how beautiful I think you are. Love G

When he carefully crawls back into the bed, she immediately curls back around him, trapping him beneath her sleep-deadened weight. He doesn't mind it.

Spirits, he cherishes this.

It's in the way she looks in that dress. Hot damn. He finds her fighting for her life at a car lot of all places, and seriously … damn. Distracting does not even begin to cover it.

"My eyes are up here, Big Guy," she says with a wide grin as she points at her chest. It's clear from the flush igniting down past the low cut neck of the dress that she is thinking about all the things she wants him to do to her in it. He is too.

That confidence is still apparent when they come face to face with her clone (yet another thing to add to the list of impossible things he's seen in the recent days.) He's not sure he's ever going to be able to recover from that shock.

"I’m Commander Shepard, I never hide," Fake Shepard says with a voice that does not belong to her.

Real Shepard, his Shepard, looks up at the her standing the next floor up, and then down at her own armored chest before cracking a ridiculous, toothy grin. "Nah, my rack is way better. No one would ever fall for it." Like she is absolutely unphased by the revelation that she has a clone and that clone is trying to kill her and usurp her life. "Bet I'm a better dancer too."

Literally everybody groans.

She's not even phased by being trapped in a dense, metal vault with quickly evaporating oxygen. She's just mad that her clone quoted her.

"I don't sound like that," she says obstinately.

"Yes, you do, Shepard," Garrus and Wrex say simultaneously.

She crosses her arms, "No, I do not. I'm way cooler. I always say, "Talk to ya later," leave 'em wanting more because I don't. And cause they get a good look at my bangin’ ass as I walk away."

"You've literally never said that. And you do talk to them again."

"Shepard, as fun as this is, how are we going to get out of here? I'm not dying in this tube," Wrex cuts in.

"Oh, right. Glyph!"

She's still arguing about how she ends conversations as they race to save the Normandy from … her.

It's in the way finally, finally he renders her a stuttering, nervous wreck on the dance floor. She swears she'll get revenge. Absolutely worth it to see her blushing in that dress again.

They barely make it back to the apartment. The dress does not survive.

It's in the way that her mercy has limits. It's too much, the pressure, the anger, the pain is boiling over, he can tell that it's about to come exploding out of her like the blast from a nuclear warhead as they move through Cronos Station.

Unfortunately, reality still exists outside of her apartment, and they have to get back into the fight again.

And then Kai Leng makes the very stupid mistake of trying to catch her with her guard down.

Shepard breaks his stupid, impractical sword, before she grabs him by the collar of his armor. She throws him to the ground and she burns with raging, electric blue fire. She's on top of him in a flash, screaming as she pulverizes him with her fists.

"Is there nothing human left in you? How could you see what happened on Thessia because of you and not know that you're the one who's wrong? I could have stopped all of this so much earlier!" She's shaking the man, who is barely holding onto the tethers of life. She punches him square against the temple, Garrus can hear something crack. "For Thessia."

Then she reaches for the broken remnants of the assassin's blade and drives it hard into his chest. "For Thane, you son of a bitch. Go to hell," she growls and then spits in his face as he dies. It’s shockingly disrespectful.

Garrus has never seen her so angry. She looks wild, her eyes are wide, frantic, her chest heaves, and tears fall as she catches her breath.

Maybe it says something unflattering about him, but he doesn't care, he's proud of her. The man deserved much worse than that.

It's in the way they say goodbye. He hopes it's not goodbye, he has faith in their chances.

He has faith in her.

"We're going to do this together, Vakarian. Like we were always meant to. So you'd better learn to duck," she says with a half smile. Her eyes are wet, and her voice is right on the verge of breaking.

"Sorry, turians don't know how. But I'll improvise. " She grips his hands tight. "Forgive the insubordination, but your boyfriend has an order for you: Come back alive. It'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you." They hold each other, and she presses a kiss to his mouth. Tears spill over, and he can taste them.

"If I don't make it out of this, just … you're never alone, alright? I'll be watching you from somewhere up there."

He says, “Never,” because it’s what she needs to hear. But he knows that a galaxy without her in it is not a galaxy he wants to live in.

During the push to get to the transport beam, his worst fears come hurtling into reality. An IFV explodes, practically right on top of him. Ducking probably would not have helped. Shepard’s calling in an evac before he regains his senses. She and Javik are helping to carry him to the Normandy’s waiting cargo bay.

“Go! You have to get out of here!” she shouts over the earth shattering sound of Reaper laser fire.

“And you’ve got to be kidding me!” he shouts back. His heart is pounding, cold fear clenches his gut.

She shakes her head, “Don’t argue, Garrus. I have to do this.”

“We’re in this until the end.”

They’re supposed to do this together.

Her hand is caressing his face, and it takes everything he has not to just grab her by the arms and pull her onto the ship with him. “No matter what happens here, you know I love you. I always will.”

“Shepard, I … love you too.”

“Go!” she shouts as she sprints away to go do the most reckless, dangerous, suicidal, brave, selfless, heroic thing any person in the known universe has ever done.

And it breaks his heart.

It's in the way she’s victorious. His heart is broken and it hurts worse than the pain from his injury. But at the same time, his heart is full of pride.

She's done it.

For years they've fought this battle. And as that terrifying red beam chases the Normandy through the relay, he knows that she's done it. Maybe it cost her her life (they don't know yet), but she has defeated an enemy so powerful, so huge, that it was supposed to be impossible.

Shepard has done the impossible …

Again.

When the Normandy crash lands, it's not as bad as they all worried. EDI is gone, and that's heartbreaking too. But the crew is able to get the Normandy in the air again with a few days of hard work.

There's destruction everywhere. The mass relays are all damaged or destroyed.

But the Reapers are really gone. For good.

She did it. He always knew she would.

It's in the way he has hope. Garrus is a lot of things, a failed C-Sec detective and vigilante, and he knows now, a hero (her influence, of course). But no one has ever accused him of being an optimist.

But as he stands before the memorial wall on the Normandy, holding the plaque with her name, all he can think is, "No, she's not dead." He knows his girl, and his girl is a survivor.

They're going to make it back to Earth. They're going to be able to rebuild, repair, and flourish.

And he's going to be together with her again.

She makes it easy to hope.

It’s in the way she survives.

#mass effect #fanfic #garrus vakarian #femshep #shakarian #the way #part 3 #weep with me friends #daisy screaming into the void

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