After Horizon

Garrus is… well, he’s messed up.  He’s absolutely focused on this, his obsession.  Which is, naturally, to find Sidonis and pop him.  It’s driving him.  He moves like he’s on something, some drug.  His shooting is still good.  After years of training, thousands of rounds, that’s the way it is—no matter what’s happening around you, you know how to get to that state of mind where everything slows down and the rifle becomes an extension of you.  That, at least, hasn’t changed for him.  But afterwards, he loses control.  When he talks, he sounds calm until you see how tense he is, underneath—the way he holds himself together, a primed grenade, a collection of shrapnel that could fly apart at a touch.  He would have shot Harkin.  I could see he wanted to.  Harkin’s a lowlife piece of shit, so I was tempted to let him, but in the end I had to ask myself what Garrus would have done.  The Garrus I know, not this Garrus-shaped package of barely-contained rage and grief and guilt and god knows what else.

So I’m standing here, between Garrus’ scope and the object of his hatred.  I’m doing my best to block his shot and in my earpiece he screams at me to get out of the way.  Instead, I talk to Sidonis, that poor stupid bastard.  He’s not cut out for this sort of thing.  Already the constant fear and crushing guilt are eating away at him.  One moment of weakness, ten men dead, and the rest of a lifetime to pay for it.  Hell, if Garrus gets a clear shot, it’ll at least be a short lifetime. 

Sidonis leans over a railing and when he’s in that posture I’m not covering him any longer.  He’s giving Garrus a line of sight and he knows it, welcomes it.  But the shot we’re both waiting for doesn’t come the instant he’s clear of me.  And in that moment I know that it won’t.  A second chance.  For all of us.

Tali falls into step with me as we walk back to the shuttle.  “That was a brave thing you did, Shepard.” 

I shake my head.  “Garrus wouldn’t have shot me.”

“No, of course not.  That’s not what I meant.”  Tali climbs into the back seat and we take off.  “I meant, opposing what he wanted to do.  And doing the right thing instead.  It’s hard to do that, with someone you care about.  Without feeling like you betrayed them.”

 I shrug.  “Garrus did the right thing.  I just gave him the chance to.”  I catch her eye in the rearview.  “I’m not sure I know what ‘betrayal’ means anyway.”

“You know what it means, Shepard,”  she says.  “You’re the most loyal person I know.  Maybe it’s hard to define it exactly, but anyone can recognize betrayal when they see it.”

I shake my head.  “Things change.  People change.  Somehow I don’t think it’s that simple.”  Tali frowns, but says nothing more.

We land back on the upper level.  Garrus seems subdued, conflicted.  The rage is gone, at least.  He says he doesn’t want to talk about it, but then he does, anyway.  He says he doesn’t know what to do with shades of gray.  Hell.  All we are, everything we do, is shades of gray.  And he’s been fighting beside me the whole time.  He’s seen it.  I think he does OK.

“Thanks, Shepard,” he says, finally.  “For everything.”  I’m not sure what that means, but I know we’re not done yet.