Mass Effect fanfiction: Lonely Heart - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Disaster

The trip to their last target seemed to be just as uneventful as the whole mission had been—they would arrive into the orbit, do some scanning, land the Mako if deemed necessary and be done with it in a few hours. Garrus closed is toolkit and leaned on one of Mako's wheels. As frustrating as their fruitless geth-hunt had been so far, at least he wasn't back at C-Sec banging his head on the byrocratic walls the system had set up. And spending time with Shepard and her crew definitely beat hauling criminals into cells around Citadel. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the wheel—he really liked it here.

"Brace for evasive manoeuvres!" Joker's voice came over the intercom suddenly and Garrus felt the cargo deck lurch under his feet.

"What the...?" Garrus thought grabbing a hold the vehicle that was too heavy to be shaken by the jumping of the ship. The cargo hold didn't have any viewports so he had no idea what was going on, but the blaring of alarms ordered the immediate evacuation of the ship. Garrus saw Wrex climbing back on his feet among random pieces of equipment that had been thrown around by the violent movements.

"Ah..." Garrus turned around to see Williams crawling toward one of the escape pods, but she had taken a hit to her leg and was unable to stand.

"Williams!" Garrus called hurrying to her side. "Wrex! She needs help!"

"What happened?" the woman asked dazzled, when the turian and the krogan pulled her up and supported her between them as they headed toward the nearest escape shuttle. "Where's Shepard?"

Garrus glanced over toward the lift which moved between the cargo hold and the command deck. One of the tanks that held Mako's fuel rolled across the deck shattering when it hit the corner of the lift—seconds later the fuel caught fire as one of the emergency lights sparkled. The Normandy was still jumping madly around and every movement send pieces of equipment flying, some of them started burning too and blocked the way toward the lift.

"She must be on the command deck," Garrus answered. "We can't get to her now. There's a fire between us and the lift. Into the escape shuttle, Williams. You too, Wrex."

"Shepard is my battlemaster," Wrex said. "I must help her to battle this enemy."

"You can't get to her!" Garrus shouted more angrily than he had intended—he recognised that part of his anger was born out of frustration and feeling of helplessness. He would have done anything if he could have gotten past the fire and been able to help Shepard on the main deck, but he knew that any attempt to get there would be a suicide, which wouldn't do any good to the commander. "You help her best by living to fight another day. Move it!"

They pushed Williams into the escape pod first and Wrex went in after her. Standing there Garrus looked back toward the lift—the flames of the fire were rising higher than before, there was no hope of getting across alive—but he wanted to try, to make a mad dash through and find Shepard.

"Vakarian?" Williams asked from her seat.

"Where's the requisition officer?" Garrus asked suddenly realising that he hadn't seen the human. "He was down here with us. Did either one of you see, what happened to him?"

"No, I haven't seen him," Williams said trying to get back up from her seat. "Maybe..."

Suddenly another lurch of the ship almost threw Garrus down and forced Williams to sit back down. Among the burning wreckage Garrus thought he saw a form of a human body, engulfed in flames—he could only hope that the requisition officer had died before he had started burning. Anyway he was beyond their help.

"Damn it," Garrus cursed, sat on a bench across from Wrex and punched for the ejection of the escape shuttle. "Damn it, damn it, damn it..."

Silence. None of them spoke. None of them could see, what had happened to the Normandy. None of them knew if there were any other escape shuttles around them. Time passed—was it minutes or hours? they didn't know—and they all just sat there in silence.

Garrus found himself thinking about Shepard. Had it only been yesterday when they had stood in the cargo bay and he had been thinking about holding her hand? Had it only been yesterday when they had been sitting in the Mako, with Shepard's rebellious hair falling on her face? Why hadn't he taken her had in his when he had a chance? Why hadn't he acted on his impulse of pulling her hair away from her eyes?

"When the Alliance comes to save us, I will," Garrus thought leaning back on his chair. "When I see her again, I'll take her in my arms and just hold her close. I want to know what her hair feels like in my fingers."

A metallic clang suddenly brought all three of them back to the present. Uncertainly they looked at each other, none of them knowing if it was friends or enemies who had gotten a hold of their escape shuttle. Their only weapon was Garrus' knife unless Wrex's natural strength was counted as a weapon—in any case they were ill prepared to face enemies.

The door to their shuttle slid open and revealed a human man dressed in Alliance uniform—Garrus breathed out in relief as did Williams.

"Wrex! Ashley! Garrus!" Liara T'Soni called as the asari saw them coming out from the shuttle tentatively. "Are you all right?"

"What happened?" Williams asked from the blue skinned alien. "Do you know where Skip- Shepard is?"

"She went to help Joker," Liara answered. "She told me to make sure everyone was evacuated and then get out from the ship, while she went to take care of him. I haven't heard about her since then."

"Who was it? The geth?" Garrus asked.

"Geth don't have that kind of weaponry," Tali said joining the group. "It must have been something—someone—else."

"We have located the last shuttle with a distress beacon," one of the Alliance people informed Williams. "It's transponder signature matches the one that was closest to the pilot station."

While the Alliance military tried to hold back the people they had rescued from the Normandy it was becoming impossible—the crew, even those who were wounded, gathered around the last shuttle waiting for the door to open. Garrus moved to the front row, he wanted to be there to wellcome Shepard, he wanted—

The door slid open revealing Joker alone in the shuttle. He was kneeling at the door—he hadn't even been secured with the safety harness—and his face were white as a sheet with expression of horror etched to his every feature. He looked up to the people surrounding him and shook his head sadly while tears rolled down his face.

"No..." Garrus whispered. "She can't be..."

"Mr. Moreau?" an authoritative voice said. "What happened to the commander?"

"She was spaced, sir," Joker said his voice dull and expressionless. "She..."

Bowing his head Garrus turned away feeling hollow.

"She can't be dead, oh please, great galaxy, don't let her be dead," he thought as he walked further away from the group and sat on a small crate. Liara and Tali were hugging each other and Garrus saw that at least the asari was crying—Tali's face was covered by her helmet, as always, but he could see she was trebling. Wrex was banging his big fists to the side of the shuttle making small dents to the surface, it felt like the banging was echoing through Garrus' head. He simply sat there, staring at the others—he had spend almost half of his life in military and had lost friends before, but for some reason he wasn't willing to think about, loosing Shepard like this felt worse than anything.

Shepard had been titled a hero even before they had met, but she had become even more so after they had taken down Saren. But Garrus found that she had been more than that for him—she had been a guide, a friend, a mentor. He had wanted to become like her, he had longed for those small words of praise she gave him from a job well done, he had felt happy when she had stopped by his post in the cargo hold to change few words. She always had an easy laugh and warm smile—and her unruly hair gave her a playful appearance even in the heat of battle.

"Oh, Shepard, what am I going to do without you?" Garrus asked silently from himself. "What anyone of us is going to do without you?"

Standing up was suddenly the hardest thing in the world for him to do.