Mass Effect fanfiction: Lonely Heart - Chapter 46

Chapter 46 – Black and White

Soon Shepard and Tali arrived with the air car to find Garrus waiting for them at the place where they had gone their separate ways a short time earlier. Before Garrus got to the car Shepard stepped out, signaling for Tali to stay put and intercepted him. She opened her mouth.

"I know you want to talk about this... but I don't," Garrus said and Shepard snapped her mouth closed again. "Not yet."

"I know it didn't go the way you planned," Shepard still said quietly, resting her hand on his arm. "But I think it's for the best."

"I'm not so sure..." Garrus replied, but he had to admit that Shepard was most likely right.

"Give it time," Shepard sighed, still blocking Garrus' way back to the car.

"Yeah," he shrugged, not looking Shepard into the eyes. "Maybe that'll be enough." Garrus hesitated for a moment before continuing. "I want to know I did the right thing. Not just for me – for my men. They deserve to be avenged. But when Sidonis was in my sights... I just couldn't do it."

Garrus wondered if he should try and explain to Shepard how the memories of past encounters with both friend and enemy had been tumbling through his mind at that moment when he had been looking at Sidonis. But Shepard knew him better than anyone; she probably understood what had been going out there better than he did.

"The lines between good and evil blur when we're looking at the people we know," she said softly.

As a sudden flash of insight Garrus realised that Shepard indeed knew what she was talking about. Ashley Williams—a woman Shepard had believed as her friend—had turned her back on her, and admiral Anderson, who had always had faith in her, supporting her through tough times, had admitted for lying to her through his teeth. Maybe the betrayals she had gone through had not led to anyone's death, but she had been betrayed by people she trusted same as him. And she had been able to forgive and move forward.

"Yeah, he admitted," understanding that it had not been Sidonis, who opened his eyes, as he had said to Harkin, but Shepard. "There was still good in him... I could see it."

Garrus sighed and with that the last lingering hatred he had held since Sidonis disappeared. He could see Shepard smiling at him warmly and her bright eyes shone like two stars in the dim light of the balcony.

"It's so much easier to see the world in black and white," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Gray... I don't know what to do with gray."

"You've got to go with your instincts," Shepard shrugged back.

"My instincts are what got me into this mess," Garrus growled but there was no malice behind his reply—for good or worse the encounter with Sidonis was past and he had accepted the result.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Shepard soothed, resting her hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

"Thanks, Shepard," Garrus said, returning her smile. "For everything. Let's get going. I need some distance from this place."

"I'm with you," Shepard replied, moving to the side and letting Garrus head toward the car, where Tali was silently waiting for them.

Shepard seated herself on the driver's seat and lifted the car off from the balcony. Steering the vehicle calmly she turned its nose toward the landing bay, where the Normandy was waiting for them. Tali, sitting behind Garrus, rested her hand on his shoulder with the same reassuring gesture Shepard had used before, and while the young quarian hardly understood him as well as Shepard did, he was comforted by her acceptance.

"We need to drop by the C-Sec headquarters," Shepard said after a while. "They need to know that Harkin is Fade and that he has been using his old C-Sec connections to help the criminals to disappear."

"I agree," Garrus nodded. "As much as I dislike captain Bailey, it is his duty to make sure Harkin will face criminal charges."

"It is kind of sad that Harkin—the first human to serve in C-Sec—has fallen so low," Shepard shook her head as she brought the car to a stop outside the main doors of Zakera Ward.

"Power corrupts, or at least that's what some people say," Tali said philosophically when Shepard pushed the doors open. "Just think what happened to Saren."

Garrus grimaced. He knew Tali didn't know about the warning his former C-Sec superior had given him before he left the Citadel and had become the Archangel, but the reference to Saren brought it back to him again.

Don't turn out like Saren.

Garrus shook his head, smiling to the memory for the first time.

"But I do want to turn out like Shepard," he thought as he followed her and Tali toward the C-Sec office where Bailey was sitting.

"Did you find Fade?" the human asked almost before they had even stopped in front of his desk. The eager gleam in his eyes could not be mistaken.

"Yeah," Shepard nodded solemnly. "Harkin's Fade."

"What?!" Bailey's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. "No way!"

"He used his old C-Sec contacts to hide criminals," Garrus nodded. "And he knew the systems. So he had contacts in C-Sec—most of who didn't even know what he was doing, I'm sure—and he had cracked into your computers before he was kicked out."

"Oh, crap," Bailey cursed, rubbing his unshaven jaw. "Harkin was next to the last person I would have suspected, but now that you told me, it is so obvious. No wonder we never got him."

"But now you know and can redeem that," Shepard said, waving her hand in farewell. "We'll let you get back to work."

---

They had barely gotten back to the ship when Thane hurried to pull Shepard to the side. On one level Garrus was relieved that Shepard had something else to occupy her attention instead of trying to talk to him about what had just happened—on the other hand the familiar nagging of jealousy followed every time, when he even saw her talking with Thane.

"What is wrong with me?" Garrus wondered. "First I try to assassinate the closest person I had for a friend after Shepard died, and now I'm being all possessive of her. I need to cool off."

Trying to sort out his feelings Garrus hadn't noticed that the conversation between Shepard and the drell had ended and she was heading back to his direction.

"Thane needs my help in dealing with a personal issue," Shepard said, stopping right next to Garrus and resting her hand on his shoulder again. "I'll be gone for a while, but we will talk more when I get back, okay?"

"I'm still not sure I want to talk about it, Shepard," Garrus replied, sighing. "It's just... hard for me."

"I understand that, Garrus," Shepard said, giving him a sad smile. "But I am your friend, and I want to help you. And I can't do that if you shut me out like this. Besides, talking about this thing might make it easier to deal with."

"I hope so," Garrus nodded. "You don't think you might need a back-up on this mission with Thane?"

"There shouldn't be any fighting involved," Shepard shook her head. "We'll be going now, but I'll talk to you soon."

After watching Shepard and Thane disappear through the airlock and back on to the Citadel, Garrus turned around to head back down to the main battery. He grabbed a tray of food when he passed through the mess hall, but had barely started with his meal when a light began to flash on his omni-tool indicating that he had an incoming message. Garrus hesitated for a moment before activating the message program. The message from his sister was marked urgent, but it had no title. It contained only two sentences, but that was enough.

Mom's had a relapse. Dad's going berserk. Sol

The tray of food fell to the floor with a loud clatter when Garrus strode out from the main battery and headed back up to the command deck.

"Ah, officer Vakarian," the red headed woman called Kelly Chambers greeted him when Garrus stepped out from the lift. "Could I have a word with you?"

"No," Garrus snapped bluntly, turning right, toward Mordin's laboratory.

"Professor Solus, do you have a moment?" Garrus asked, gritting his teeth—the news he had received had been bad enough, and having to share the topic with the overly-verbal salarian scientist made it even worse, but Garrus couldn't think of anyone else he could speak to.

"Certainly," Mordin replied pleasantly as if Garrus had not just barged into his treasured science lab looking like he intended to smash the whole place down.

"You're a scientist," Garrus said. "What do you know about Corpalis Syndrome?"

"Nasty decease. Turian," the salarian started to speak almost before Garrus had finished. "Causes neural degeneration. Currently there is no known cure. Some treatments to prevent and slow down the symptoms. In the end, fatal."

"My mother has it," Garrus said when Mordin fell silent.

"Most unfortunate," the professor replied. "Can speak to some old colleagues of mine. Studying many diseases. Could be of help."

"I would appreciate that, professor," Garrus thanked—he had not expected it, but having spoken about his mother's disease made him feel a bit better with himself, somehow more involved. "And not a word to commander, deal?"

"Of course," the salarian smiled. "And please, call me Mordin."

"If you call me Garrus," the turian replied and the two shook hands.

A moment later Garrus exited the lab and headed back toward the lift, sternly avoiding to look toward Chambers, who stood by her usual post and was obviously waiting for Garrus to come back so she could try her psychological training on him.

Garrus simply ignored her, entered the lift and returned to the main battery and his work there. Before their trip to Haestrom—before he had heard where Sidonis was—he had gotten the first stage of the new weapons system installed, but it was far from being ready to be used.

To get his mind off the most resent set of bad news, Garrus set his visor to play his favourite music and started working with the cannon.

Several hours later—Garrus wasn't entirely sure how much time had passed—the door opened and Shepard came in.

"Garrus," she greeted him. "Do you have a minute?"

"Can it wait a bit, Shepard?" Garrus asked, his hands buried to the elbow among the wires and other innards of the Thanix cannon. "I can't drop what I'm doing right now."

"Oh, sure," Shepard replied with a hint of a worry in her voice, but Garrus was too preoccupied with his work to take much notice of her mood. "I'll talk to you later."

Almost before the door had closed behind Shepard, Garrus was again immersed in his work with his full attention, having sternly pushed Sidonis out of his mind as well as his mother's disease.