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greenstickered2015-06-14 02:30 pm
camalyng) wrote in greenstickered2015-06-14 02:30 pm
Mass Effect (Relay Monument Incident): Polytrauma
Title: Polytrauma
Rating: PG (Jack cameo)
Words: ~4330
Summary: While Ashley recovers from the Mars mission, Garrus tries to visit her.
Garrus doesn't think much of it when he finds a poetry book made of real paper in starboard obs, assuming Kasumi must have left it behind when they all left on the way to Earth. He used to sometimes find her things in the battery back in the day; he knows she liked to sneak around. The real surprise is Ashley's name inside the cover: He hadn't known she'd been on this Normandy.
He puts the book open in front of Shepard in the mess, startling her from her meal and datapad. "When was Ash here?"
"A few days ago," she says, peering at Ashley's handwriting. "You want to give this back to her when we get back to the Citadel?"
Earlier today, when he was contemplating coming back to the Normandy, there'd been a moment where he'd thought, Ash is out there, and he'll never admit it had been a small point in favor of leaving Menae. It wasn't the deciding factor, of course, especially when he's not even sure she'd want to see him again: The last time they saw each other was incredibly confusing, what with her telling Shepard she was keeping him and then telling him to get out, and they've fallen out of contact once more. He makes a noncommittal sound as he sits down across from Shepard. "Was she reassigned?"
Shepard blinks at him, and then her eyes widen as she realizes something. "Garrus, she's in hospital."
"What."
He goes rigid as Shepard explains how Anderson had called her to the Normandy as the attack on Earth began, how they'd gone to the Prothean Archives on Mars, how the android EDI's now inhabiting had almost killed her, how she'd been unconscious but stable when Shepard had visited her. There's a note of pride in her voice when she makes a side note that Ashley's a Lieutenant Commander now, the same rank as her, and Garrus is just as proud. But when she finishes, he demands, "Was anyone planning on telling me this?"
"Garrus," Shepard says gently. "I was going to tell you all this in a general 'how we got here' after dinner, but you were the one always saying she's not your girlfriend or your ex."
And of all the people on the Normandy now, only Shepard, Joker, Liara, and Chakwas would know off-hand that he knew her, let alone cares about her. Garrus deflates. "Sorry."
She reaches over and pats him on the shoulder. "It's okay. I would have said the same thing if it was Liara."
But the difference between her and Liara and him and Ashley is that Shepard and Liara are actually together and probably even the Reapers know it, so she would have been told Liara was hospitalized.
"You should come with me to the hospital next time," she adds. "Someone must have told her you're back, because she texted me saying it was good news. You haven't seen her since last year, have you?"
He shakes his head. "I'd like to, but the Primarch says there's a lot that needs to be done with our wounded," he says. "You bring her the book. She should have it sooner rather than later."
"Okay," she says, flicking through it. She slides it across to him on a particular page. "This was her dad's favorite poem. She used to record it for him when he shipped out; she reads it to his grave when she goes home - she knows the whole thing by heart."
Garrus reads four lines then looks up at her, recognizing this as Shepard's attempt to apologize for not telling him about Ashley's hospitalization sooner, by helping him learn something about her. "Thank you," he says, making a mental note of the poem and book's titles before passing it back to her. "I think I'd better read this digitally - I don't want to tear a page."
"Forget working for Cerberus," Shepard deadpans. "Ripping your girl's favorite book? Now that's unforgiveable."
"She's not my -" he starts, and then realizes he's doing it again when she gestures at him like, See? "What," he tries instead. "Did you rip one of Liara's?"
"That is need to know and I don't think you have a high enough clearance, Officer."
Apparently he has a high enough clearance for Shepard to forward him an e-mail from Ashley saying that Udina wants her to be a Spectre.
Garrus patches through to Shepard. "Udina's an ass, but he's got an eye for Spectres," he says. "She deserves this."
"You should tell her that in person," says Shepard. "She'll probably kill me for forwarding that to you."
"I'll try," he says, and he means it, and he definitely means it when he says it again on the Citadel, but when Shepard calls him to tell him that they're shipping out, he's still on the docks and he hasn't eaten all day.
"She's awake," she tells him as he almost inhales a dextro meal in the mess. He doesn't have to ask who she's talking about. "Bored out of her mind. Worried about her family."
His mandibles draw together. "Did Amaterasu get hit?"
"Her family moved to Earth after the Collector attacks on the colonies," she says, and Garrus winces. So they're in the same situation. "She hasn't heard from her mom or most of her sisters, but the youngest, Sarah, was away on her honeymoon -"
"So she and Thomas did get married," he says. He wonders how many flower choices Ashley had to weigh in on, how her speech went. (He wonders if she took a date.)
Shepard blinks. "Yeah, I guess. But Thomas got called in. Sarah's supposed to be meeting Ash on the Citadel so they can wait for news together."
"Good," he says. "She'll have someone with her."
"Mm-hm."
His spoon scrapes on the plate before he realizes he's finished. "Did she accept Spectre?"
"No, she's still thinking about it. You know, I'm glad she gets more time to decide than I did, but I do hope she accepts." Shepard studies him thoughtfully. "You really should visit."
He gives her an even look. "Did she say that?"
"She smiled when I told her you were the one who found her book," says Shepard, and his mandibles flutter happily before he can stop them. "Very quickly, and she changed the subject afterwards, but it was there."
"I'll see what I can do," he says.
"Hey, Garrus," Jack says on the shuttle. "Have you heard from your Alliance fu-- girlfriend?"
After a gossip session with Joker on the way from the Citadel to Haestrom, she'd gone rapidly from calling Ashley 'that Alliance bitch' to calling her his 'fuckbuddy', which isn't much better, but the self censorship in front of her students makes him laugh. "She's not my girlfriend."
She smirks. "I know. So have you heard from her?"
"She's in hospital and Garrus won't visit," Shepard says helpfully.
"Or write," adds Liara.
Garrus glances over and very nearly calls her the Shadow Broker in front of civilians. "Stop hacking my e-mail," he says instead. "It's not that I won't -"
"Pussy," says Jack, and then with a glance at the kids, "Cat. He's like a pussycat. You know, because turians look like cats."
Her students snicker. Garrus runs an extranet image search for cats on his omni-tool.
Jack calling him a coward in front of teenagers is as galling as it is true, so when they return to the Citadel, he talks his way into a break from the docks. Officially it's for lunch, but he gets takeaways and rushes to the hospital instead. There's a text on his omni-tool from Shepard saying Ashley's awake and chatting, but it was sent a few hours ago; hopefully it's still true.
"I'm looking for a Lieutenant Commander Williams," he says at reception. "Ashley Madeline."
The receptionist looks her up and points him through to intensive care. Abruptly, Garrus gives him a thoughtful look. "You're human. What's the customary gift for someone recovering from injuries?"
"Uh," says the receptionist. "Flowers, I guess. You can buy some from the Sirta kiosk behind you."
His extranet search when Ashley first asked about flowers for his mom had only mentioned flowers for sick people, achievements, and dates. "Thanks."
Garrus turns around and pokes at the kiosk. There's a lot more available than in the gift kiosks in the hospitals on Palaven, probably because Huerta gets far more patients of different species. He buys the flowers (pink and white like her Phoenix armor), then notices a poetry book section. There's no Pablo Neruda, and though the book she'd left onboard had been by a variety of poets, the only name that looks familiar is the writer of "O Captain! My Captain!", so he buys the Walt Whitman book, picks up the gifts, and heads for her room.
The woman in the bed barely looks like Ash. She'd gotten pretty beaten up on Virmire - Shepard had had to carry her onboard - but her injuries had been mostly internal, and Chakwas had more or less patched her up before the debriefing. Even possibly suicidal, even naked with all that delicate human skin on display and her heart on the line, she's never looked this fragile to him before, and it scares him how close he came to losing her without even knowing it. It's been a week and a half since Mars and the bruises covering her face are still dark, beneath that she's the palest he's ever seen her, and even in her sleep she looks pained and exhausted. Shepard had never mentioned that Ashley still looks close to death.
He sets the book and flowers down on the sidetable, hesitates, then takes the seat next to her. It was only three months ago that he stood in the doorway of his mother's hospital room as she died without a word; he needs to make this different.
"Hey," he says quietly. "It's me. Just wanted to see how you're doing, from the source instead of second hand. Shepard said you were up for talking this morning, but I guess I missed you."
He feels incredibly stupid. As far as he knows, it's only good to talk to unconscious people in actual comas. He doesn't want to wake her when she clearly needs her rest, but it's been so long since he's seen her, and they didn't even say 'hello' or 'goodbye' last time.
"Spirits, I've missed you," he confesses. "When I was trying to clean up Omega, going after the Collectors, when my mom died, when I was trying to prepare Palaven for the Reapers, being back on the Normandy. I'm not going to lie; I didn't think about you every day, but every time I did, it was always, 'I wish Ash was here.' Usually so I could apologize, set things right. Sometimes it was in the field, because you're a hell of a shot. There were a lot of reasons. But underneath all of them..."
He leans over and brushes her hair off her face, and immediately feels creepy. Ashley rolls over towards him, whining something too low to be picked up by his translator, and he yanks his hand back into his lap. For a moment, he holds his breath, but she curls in on herself without another sound, her brow still creased in pain. If he hadn't known walking in that he still loves her, he would have realized it by how hard he's wishing he could take that pain away from her.
"The last time we saw each other, I tried to tell you something, and you stopped me," he continues, softer than before. "You said I had to come back. Well, we made it back from the Collector base. I couldn't tell you then, but I've come back to you now."
He takes a deep breath. He's said it to her before, just in character, half hoping she wouldn't see through it and half hoping she would. She did, and she'd said she felt the same way, but it's been two years of distance and Cerberus and Reapers since.
And he still feels it.
"I love you, Ash," he says, out loud, completely translatable, and as himself for the first time. "And maybe it's a good thing that you're not awake to hear this, because you'd probably just tell me I'm panicking because you almost died and no one told me. But I knew two years ago, long before you got beaten up by a Cerberus robot. I first realized it when you asked if you could send flowers to my mom, when you said you were praying for us."
He chuckles. "It was probably such a little thing for you, you'd probably do that for anyone's family, but I still haven't even told Shepard about Mom." He pauses, and adds, "She died a few months back. Doesn't seem important enough to bring up now. But back when you were out in the Kepler Verge, on an Alliance base, you wanted to help, however you could. And I thought, spirits, I love this woman."
The door opens, and Garrus looks up to find a turian nurse bustling in with a datapad.
"Hi, I'm Caprix, Commander Williams' nurse this afternoon," she says. "Is she still asleep?"
He nods. "Can you tell me what's going on with her?"
"I'm sorry, you are...?"
He loves her, and he's nothing to her. They never gave their relationship a name. 'Exes' is too much when they'd only barely admitted they had a relationship at all before he went through the Omega-4 relay. They've been out of contact too long to be friends. They haven't been squadmates in two years, and he's not sure if they ever will be again, if Ashley will get assigned back to the Normandy when she's discharged.
Garrus is silent for a moment too long before lying, "Her squadmate."
"Right," she says, visibly unconvinced. "I'm sorry, I can only give details to family and her CO."
He grits his teeth. Their squad on the first Normandy pretty much was family, more so than any turian platoon he was ever in. "Just tell me one thing," he says. "Is she getting painkillers? Because she looks like she's in pain."
The nurse's mandibles curve sympathetically. "She... had a really rough day in PT," she says. "But she said she didn't need any painkillers, just a nap."
Deliberately, he relaxes his shoulders, and stands up. Ashley knows her limits. If sleep is helping her, he'll let her sleep, instead of rambling on like an idiot. "Okay," he says, and then again to convince himself, "Okay. Thank you."
"I can tell her you stopped by, Mr..."
"No, it's fine," he says, glancing at the flowers and book on her bedside table. "I'll come again when she's awake."
Shepard forwards him another e-mail: Ashley's a Spectre. He's never been so proud of her. But considering she's signed off the e-mail with I'm planning on sneaking out soon, he knows he's running out of time to tell her he told her so in person.
For some reason he's surprised to get tied up in refugee support logistics when they hit the Citadel after Sur'Kesh. Shepard's busy too, but James mentions to Shepard in the airlock that he went to visit Ash, so Garrus goads him into a shuttle bay sparring match. James spars much like Ashley, all Alliance trained moves and a fondness for punching, but with more weight behind his attacks, more bulk on his defense, and more willingness to hold conversations during it, and for some reason he calls it dancing.
"I heard you saw Commander Williams," says Garrus, ducking under a punch. "How is she?"
"Yeah, she's good," says James. "She's back on her feet. Trying to figure out who left her some flowers and a poetry book a few days ago. Wait, do you know her?"
Garrus twitches his mandibles in amusement. She would want to know where her gifts came from. "We were squadmates on the first Normandy," he says. No need to air their dirty laundry to the new kid.
"Oh, yeah," says James, and he sidesteps as Garrus goes for a kick. "Well, besides the mystery gift, she's muy aliviada: Her family made it off Earth fine."
Garrus is so pleased that he almost lets James throw him. He's been worrying about Ashley's mother, sisters, and brother in law in almost the same thoughts as his own father and sister, and he doesn't even know what they look like. "Good."
"Her brother in law was killed in action, though," James adds, coming in for another punch.
It's not just the blow glancing off his shoulder as he dodges a second too late that makes him wince. "Shame. They'd only been married, what, a few months?"
"They had a pretty long engagement," James points out. They spiral around each other as Garrus regroups. "Anyway, Sarah wants Ash to say something at the memorial. She's pretty good at speeches, you know. Said something nice when I left the 212."
Garrus blinks. For someone who claims to not be a word person, this makes three speeches he's heard of Ashley giving, but more importantly: "You were in the 212 with her?" He was pretty sure they'd all died.
"Yeah, got reassigned before the ambush," he says. "But then after the first Normandy went down she got assigned to my Rapid Response Base, so I guess someone in the brass thinks we make a good team."
"Ah," says Garrus. It all makes sense now: When he'd first met with Shepard's squad on Menae, James had looked faintly familiar to him, and after a few days he'd asked if they'd met before. James had said no; going to the Citadel was the first time he'd met turians. Ashley had mentioned a James in her e-mails, had sent a photo with him.
"Ancient history now that she's a Spectre," James says proudly. He closes in on him. "She said they're holding the official ceremony when she gets out of hospital."
Garrus swipes; James blocks the hit. He smiles anyway. "You know, I told her two years ago she should apply for Spectre candidacy, and she always laughed at me."
James squints at him. Garrus takes the opportunity to knock him on his ass. "You didn't use to e-mail her, did you?"
"Uh," he says eloquently. "Yeah. Why?"
He offers him a hand up, but James doesn't take it, staring at him thoughtfully. "When we were on that Rapid Response Base, there were a few months when she was always writing to some guy from an old squad. She'd light up like a kid on Christmas every time he wrote back, but one time an e-mail came in on the frigate and she starts laughing her ass off: She said the guy started filling in a Spectre candidacy application for her."
"That was definitely me."
Surging up in a rush, James smashes his fist into his cheek. "You know how depressed she got when you stopped writing?" he says, getting right back into his face. He's really going for him, forcing Garrus onto the defensive. "I dragged her out to my farewell drinks when I got reassigned and you know what she did when she got wasted?"
"Hooked up with the closest turian?" Garrus suggests, because she'd been drunk both when they'd first made out and the last time they saw each other.
James headbutts him, hard, and he's so stunned that he actually lets James land a few hits before he gets his hands up again. "No, you ass, she started losing her shit about a turian pendejo who wasn't writing back. Look, I saw how our CO on Eden Prime treated her for being General Williams' granddaughter. You're a turian and you led her on!"
"I didn't 'lead her on'," Garrus protests. If anything, he's always been more honest about his feelings. "I know I screwed up but I never led her on."
"You made her worry," James returns, and he throws him to the floor in a move Garrus really should have seen coming, because he has the same tells for it as Ashley.
"You know, she'd give you a hard time for trying to defend her honor like this," Shepard calls out, and Garrus wonders how long she's been standing by the requisitions terminal. "Vega, Vakarian, let's call it a draw."
James gets off of him and stalks back to his area of the bay. "Visit Ash," he says without turning around. "Apologize."
Garrus gets to his feet. "I apologized months ago," he yells, and he rubs his scars as he heads to the elevator. He'd apologized, but he'd never explained anything more than "rocket". She deserves to know why he left and what he was doing.
His cursor blinks in the message body of an e-mail addressed to Ashley, but he doesn't know how to even start.
"You reek of human," Javik announces.
Garrus looks up from his omni-tool at him, irritated by the distraction. "We're on a human ship, in case you haven't noticed."
Javik waves a hand dismissively. "Your pheromones," he says. "That cannot be changed by where you serve. No, you smell like a human soldier who was here recently, though not for long. She left traces of duty, distrust in the starboard observation lounge. The freshest spike of physical pain in the medical bay is hers too."
If he could only use two words to describe Ashley, Garrus would go for competence and compassion, but he has to admit those are pretty accurate too. More alarming is the news that something noticeable by at least one person has been uncontrollably altered by her.
"I'm surprised the freshest pain in there isn't me," he says, trying to deflect. "Vega got me pretty good in the shuttle bay."
Four eyes roll at him. "You and this female human are joined?"
Okay, that's a new one. "What?"
With a great sigh, Javik lifts his gaze to the ceiling. "Machine. You claimed to have dispensed the Prothean language tutorial."
"I believe Javik is asking if you are in a relationship with Commander Williams," EDI says.
Ashley's e-mail address glows accusingly at him. Garrus shrugs, his mandibles drawing. "Not really."
Javik huffs, unconvinced. "Mating between species is a pointless exercise, anyway."
"I imagine it's like any cooperation between species," he says. "Building on each other's strengths to develop something better than either could do alone."
"Unless one species is subservient, that kind of cooperation would never be allowed in my cycle."
"Thanks, Javik," he drawls. "I didn't really want to know you were that kinky."
Lieutenant Victus goes down with the bomb trigger.
Garrus tells Shepard and EDI about turian culture, about putting society first, but with a lieutenant, a bomb, and a sacrifice, it's hard not to think of Kaidan, and he can never think of Kaidan without thinking of Ashley. Until Shepard started experimenting with the shore party makeups, they'd almost been two halves of a whole in his mind, introduced to him together, spending most of their time together (which he later realized was at least partially Ashley avoiding aliens), the only two humans who went ashore with Shepard. And then Saren made them two sides of a choice on Virmire, and Shepard turned Alenko-and-Williams, Ashley-and-Kaidan into Ash. He can think about Ashley without thinking about Kaidan, but he owes a lot of that to Kaidan.
He's still thinking about both of them, and how they would have made the same choice Tarquin Victus made if Shepard hadn't made the choice for them, and how Ashley almost could have been Kaidan and convinced herself she should have been, when they reach the Citadel. Instead of going straight to the refugee camp as usual, he goes to the hospital first, but her room is empty. He heads back out to the reception desk.
"Where's Commander Williams? Has she been discharged?"
The receptionist - the same guy who'd told him to get flowers - types something into his terminal, but as he waits for it, says, "Probably - she was made Spectre yesterday; I saw it on the vids. Glad we've got another human Spectre now." He glances up from the terminal. "Yeah, discharged three days ago."
She could be anywhere by now, and he didn't get to so much as congratulate her, let alone catch up with her or watch her Spectre induction ceremony. Garrus curls one hand into a fist without thinking, then deliberately releases it when the receptionist's eyes widen. It's not the receptionist's fault he wasn't here. It's a good thing that she's out; it means she's well. He has to remind himself of these things, taking a deep breath before forcing out, "Congratulations to humanity," and leaving.
"Shore leave's supposed to calm you down, not stress you out more," says Wrex, peering at him over his dinner as they head back to Tuchanka.
Garrus realizes he's still scowling. He forces his facial plates and mandibles to relax, rolling his head on his shoulders. "Ash was discharged from the hospital," he says.
"Oh, good for her," Wrex says warmly. "Wonder where she'll go next. Times like this, the galaxy needs another Spectre with a quad."
Finally, a reason to smile, or at least smirk, which is almost the same thing. "She definitely doesn't have a quad."
It's not that good a joke, he knows that, but he's pretty proud of himself when Wrex guffaws.
"Did she say anything to you about her first Spectre assignment?" Wrex says eventually, though his grin remains. "She was still waiting when I last talked to her."
Garrus looks at him ready to be incredulous, before he remembers that Wrex missed most of their drama, and as far as he could tell when he'd come up for air from datapads and injured soldiers, hadn't seen how busy the cargo hold could get. "I never visited her." When she was awake, anyway.
Wrex stares. "Even I visited, and I'm not the one who mated with her."
"I tried," he snaps, and then he shakes his head, stopping himself before he can demand details or demand to know why Wrex didn't tell him. "You were right: Long distance is for pyjaks."
"Of course I'm right," says Wrex. "Who cheated?"
"No one cheated," he says, rolling his eyes. "I'm just... bad at staying in touch."
"You are a pyjak," Wrex assesses.
"I know," he says. All he needs is a chance to tell her. "Anyway, speaking of quads, and mating, I bet you're excited about the cure."
As Wrex starts complaining about Mordin's invasive medical procedures, Garrus laughs along in the appropriate places, and decides to try and find out where Ashley was assigned once they get back from curing the genophage. Maybe Shepard has access to other Spectres' info, or maybe Liara can get into the files. He just wants one reunion with her to go right.
Rating: PG (Jack cameo)
Words: ~4330
Summary: While Ashley recovers from the Mars mission, Garrus tries to visit her.
Garrus doesn't think much of it when he finds a poetry book made of real paper in starboard obs, assuming Kasumi must have left it behind when they all left on the way to Earth. He used to sometimes find her things in the battery back in the day; he knows she liked to sneak around. The real surprise is Ashley's name inside the cover: He hadn't known she'd been on this Normandy.
He puts the book open in front of Shepard in the mess, startling her from her meal and datapad. "When was Ash here?"
"A few days ago," she says, peering at Ashley's handwriting. "You want to give this back to her when we get back to the Citadel?"
Earlier today, when he was contemplating coming back to the Normandy, there'd been a moment where he'd thought, Ash is out there, and he'll never admit it had been a small point in favor of leaving Menae. It wasn't the deciding factor, of course, especially when he's not even sure she'd want to see him again: The last time they saw each other was incredibly confusing, what with her telling Shepard she was keeping him and then telling him to get out, and they've fallen out of contact once more. He makes a noncommittal sound as he sits down across from Shepard. "Was she reassigned?"
Shepard blinks at him, and then her eyes widen as she realizes something. "Garrus, she's in hospital."
"What."
He goes rigid as Shepard explains how Anderson had called her to the Normandy as the attack on Earth began, how they'd gone to the Prothean Archives on Mars, how the android EDI's now inhabiting had almost killed her, how she'd been unconscious but stable when Shepard had visited her. There's a note of pride in her voice when she makes a side note that Ashley's a Lieutenant Commander now, the same rank as her, and Garrus is just as proud. But when she finishes, he demands, "Was anyone planning on telling me this?"
"Garrus," Shepard says gently. "I was going to tell you all this in a general 'how we got here' after dinner, but you were the one always saying she's not your girlfriend or your ex."
And of all the people on the Normandy now, only Shepard, Joker, Liara, and Chakwas would know off-hand that he knew her, let alone cares about her. Garrus deflates. "Sorry."
She reaches over and pats him on the shoulder. "It's okay. I would have said the same thing if it was Liara."
But the difference between her and Liara and him and Ashley is that Shepard and Liara are actually together and probably even the Reapers know it, so she would have been told Liara was hospitalized.
"You should come with me to the hospital next time," she adds. "Someone must have told her you're back, because she texted me saying it was good news. You haven't seen her since last year, have you?"
He shakes his head. "I'd like to, but the Primarch says there's a lot that needs to be done with our wounded," he says. "You bring her the book. She should have it sooner rather than later."
"Okay," she says, flicking through it. She slides it across to him on a particular page. "This was her dad's favorite poem. She used to record it for him when he shipped out; she reads it to his grave when she goes home - she knows the whole thing by heart."
Garrus reads four lines then looks up at her, recognizing this as Shepard's attempt to apologize for not telling him about Ashley's hospitalization sooner, by helping him learn something about her. "Thank you," he says, making a mental note of the poem and book's titles before passing it back to her. "I think I'd better read this digitally - I don't want to tear a page."
"Forget working for Cerberus," Shepard deadpans. "Ripping your girl's favorite book? Now that's unforgiveable."
"She's not my -" he starts, and then realizes he's doing it again when she gestures at him like, See? "What," he tries instead. "Did you rip one of Liara's?"
"That is need to know and I don't think you have a high enough clearance, Officer."
Apparently he has a high enough clearance for Shepard to forward him an e-mail from Ashley saying that Udina wants her to be a Spectre.
Garrus patches through to Shepard. "Udina's an ass, but he's got an eye for Spectres," he says. "She deserves this."
"You should tell her that in person," says Shepard. "She'll probably kill me for forwarding that to you."
"I'll try," he says, and he means it, and he definitely means it when he says it again on the Citadel, but when Shepard calls him to tell him that they're shipping out, he's still on the docks and he hasn't eaten all day.
"She's awake," she tells him as he almost inhales a dextro meal in the mess. He doesn't have to ask who she's talking about. "Bored out of her mind. Worried about her family."
His mandibles draw together. "Did Amaterasu get hit?"
"Her family moved to Earth after the Collector attacks on the colonies," she says, and Garrus winces. So they're in the same situation. "She hasn't heard from her mom or most of her sisters, but the youngest, Sarah, was away on her honeymoon -"
"So she and Thomas did get married," he says. He wonders how many flower choices Ashley had to weigh in on, how her speech went. (He wonders if she took a date.)
Shepard blinks. "Yeah, I guess. But Thomas got called in. Sarah's supposed to be meeting Ash on the Citadel so they can wait for news together."
"Good," he says. "She'll have someone with her."
"Mm-hm."
His spoon scrapes on the plate before he realizes he's finished. "Did she accept Spectre?"
"No, she's still thinking about it. You know, I'm glad she gets more time to decide than I did, but I do hope she accepts." Shepard studies him thoughtfully. "You really should visit."
He gives her an even look. "Did she say that?"
"She smiled when I told her you were the one who found her book," says Shepard, and his mandibles flutter happily before he can stop them. "Very quickly, and she changed the subject afterwards, but it was there."
"I'll see what I can do," he says.
"Hey, Garrus," Jack says on the shuttle. "Have you heard from your Alliance fu-- girlfriend?"
After a gossip session with Joker on the way from the Citadel to Haestrom, she'd gone rapidly from calling Ashley 'that Alliance bitch' to calling her his 'fuckbuddy', which isn't much better, but the self censorship in front of her students makes him laugh. "She's not my girlfriend."
She smirks. "I know. So have you heard from her?"
"She's in hospital and Garrus won't visit," Shepard says helpfully.
"Or write," adds Liara.
Garrus glances over and very nearly calls her the Shadow Broker in front of civilians. "Stop hacking my e-mail," he says instead. "It's not that I won't -"
"Pussy," says Jack, and then with a glance at the kids, "Cat. He's like a pussycat. You know, because turians look like cats."
Her students snicker. Garrus runs an extranet image search for cats on his omni-tool.
Jack calling him a coward in front of teenagers is as galling as it is true, so when they return to the Citadel, he talks his way into a break from the docks. Officially it's for lunch, but he gets takeaways and rushes to the hospital instead. There's a text on his omni-tool from Shepard saying Ashley's awake and chatting, but it was sent a few hours ago; hopefully it's still true.
"I'm looking for a Lieutenant Commander Williams," he says at reception. "Ashley Madeline."
The receptionist looks her up and points him through to intensive care. Abruptly, Garrus gives him a thoughtful look. "You're human. What's the customary gift for someone recovering from injuries?"
"Uh," says the receptionist. "Flowers, I guess. You can buy some from the Sirta kiosk behind you."
His extranet search when Ashley first asked about flowers for his mom had only mentioned flowers for sick people, achievements, and dates. "Thanks."
Garrus turns around and pokes at the kiosk. There's a lot more available than in the gift kiosks in the hospitals on Palaven, probably because Huerta gets far more patients of different species. He buys the flowers (pink and white like her Phoenix armor), then notices a poetry book section. There's no Pablo Neruda, and though the book she'd left onboard had been by a variety of poets, the only name that looks familiar is the writer of "O Captain! My Captain!", so he buys the Walt Whitman book, picks up the gifts, and heads for her room.
The woman in the bed barely looks like Ash. She'd gotten pretty beaten up on Virmire - Shepard had had to carry her onboard - but her injuries had been mostly internal, and Chakwas had more or less patched her up before the debriefing. Even possibly suicidal, even naked with all that delicate human skin on display and her heart on the line, she's never looked this fragile to him before, and it scares him how close he came to losing her without even knowing it. It's been a week and a half since Mars and the bruises covering her face are still dark, beneath that she's the palest he's ever seen her, and even in her sleep she looks pained and exhausted. Shepard had never mentioned that Ashley still looks close to death.
He sets the book and flowers down on the sidetable, hesitates, then takes the seat next to her. It was only three months ago that he stood in the doorway of his mother's hospital room as she died without a word; he needs to make this different.
"Hey," he says quietly. "It's me. Just wanted to see how you're doing, from the source instead of second hand. Shepard said you were up for talking this morning, but I guess I missed you."
He feels incredibly stupid. As far as he knows, it's only good to talk to unconscious people in actual comas. He doesn't want to wake her when she clearly needs her rest, but it's been so long since he's seen her, and they didn't even say 'hello' or 'goodbye' last time.
"Spirits, I've missed you," he confesses. "When I was trying to clean up Omega, going after the Collectors, when my mom died, when I was trying to prepare Palaven for the Reapers, being back on the Normandy. I'm not going to lie; I didn't think about you every day, but every time I did, it was always, 'I wish Ash was here.' Usually so I could apologize, set things right. Sometimes it was in the field, because you're a hell of a shot. There were a lot of reasons. But underneath all of them..."
He leans over and brushes her hair off her face, and immediately feels creepy. Ashley rolls over towards him, whining something too low to be picked up by his translator, and he yanks his hand back into his lap. For a moment, he holds his breath, but she curls in on herself without another sound, her brow still creased in pain. If he hadn't known walking in that he still loves her, he would have realized it by how hard he's wishing he could take that pain away from her.
"The last time we saw each other, I tried to tell you something, and you stopped me," he continues, softer than before. "You said I had to come back. Well, we made it back from the Collector base. I couldn't tell you then, but I've come back to you now."
He takes a deep breath. He's said it to her before, just in character, half hoping she wouldn't see through it and half hoping she would. She did, and she'd said she felt the same way, but it's been two years of distance and Cerberus and Reapers since.
And he still feels it.
"I love you, Ash," he says, out loud, completely translatable, and as himself for the first time. "And maybe it's a good thing that you're not awake to hear this, because you'd probably just tell me I'm panicking because you almost died and no one told me. But I knew two years ago, long before you got beaten up by a Cerberus robot. I first realized it when you asked if you could send flowers to my mom, when you said you were praying for us."
He chuckles. "It was probably such a little thing for you, you'd probably do that for anyone's family, but I still haven't even told Shepard about Mom." He pauses, and adds, "She died a few months back. Doesn't seem important enough to bring up now. But back when you were out in the Kepler Verge, on an Alliance base, you wanted to help, however you could. And I thought, spirits, I love this woman."
The door opens, and Garrus looks up to find a turian nurse bustling in with a datapad.
"Hi, I'm Caprix, Commander Williams' nurse this afternoon," she says. "Is she still asleep?"
He nods. "Can you tell me what's going on with her?"
"I'm sorry, you are...?"
He loves her, and he's nothing to her. They never gave their relationship a name. 'Exes' is too much when they'd only barely admitted they had a relationship at all before he went through the Omega-4 relay. They've been out of contact too long to be friends. They haven't been squadmates in two years, and he's not sure if they ever will be again, if Ashley will get assigned back to the Normandy when she's discharged.
Garrus is silent for a moment too long before lying, "Her squadmate."
"Right," she says, visibly unconvinced. "I'm sorry, I can only give details to family and her CO."
He grits his teeth. Their squad on the first Normandy pretty much was family, more so than any turian platoon he was ever in. "Just tell me one thing," he says. "Is she getting painkillers? Because she looks like she's in pain."
The nurse's mandibles curve sympathetically. "She... had a really rough day in PT," she says. "But she said she didn't need any painkillers, just a nap."
Deliberately, he relaxes his shoulders, and stands up. Ashley knows her limits. If sleep is helping her, he'll let her sleep, instead of rambling on like an idiot. "Okay," he says, and then again to convince himself, "Okay. Thank you."
"I can tell her you stopped by, Mr..."
"No, it's fine," he says, glancing at the flowers and book on her bedside table. "I'll come again when she's awake."
Shepard forwards him another e-mail: Ashley's a Spectre. He's never been so proud of her. But considering she's signed off the e-mail with I'm planning on sneaking out soon, he knows he's running out of time to tell her he told her so in person.
For some reason he's surprised to get tied up in refugee support logistics when they hit the Citadel after Sur'Kesh. Shepard's busy too, but James mentions to Shepard in the airlock that he went to visit Ash, so Garrus goads him into a shuttle bay sparring match. James spars much like Ashley, all Alliance trained moves and a fondness for punching, but with more weight behind his attacks, more bulk on his defense, and more willingness to hold conversations during it, and for some reason he calls it dancing.
"I heard you saw Commander Williams," says Garrus, ducking under a punch. "How is she?"
"Yeah, she's good," says James. "She's back on her feet. Trying to figure out who left her some flowers and a poetry book a few days ago. Wait, do you know her?"
Garrus twitches his mandibles in amusement. She would want to know where her gifts came from. "We were squadmates on the first Normandy," he says. No need to air their dirty laundry to the new kid.
"Oh, yeah," says James, and he sidesteps as Garrus goes for a kick. "Well, besides the mystery gift, she's muy aliviada: Her family made it off Earth fine."
Garrus is so pleased that he almost lets James throw him. He's been worrying about Ashley's mother, sisters, and brother in law in almost the same thoughts as his own father and sister, and he doesn't even know what they look like. "Good."
"Her brother in law was killed in action, though," James adds, coming in for another punch.
It's not just the blow glancing off his shoulder as he dodges a second too late that makes him wince. "Shame. They'd only been married, what, a few months?"
"They had a pretty long engagement," James points out. They spiral around each other as Garrus regroups. "Anyway, Sarah wants Ash to say something at the memorial. She's pretty good at speeches, you know. Said something nice when I left the 212."
Garrus blinks. For someone who claims to not be a word person, this makes three speeches he's heard of Ashley giving, but more importantly: "You were in the 212 with her?" He was pretty sure they'd all died.
"Yeah, got reassigned before the ambush," he says. "But then after the first Normandy went down she got assigned to my Rapid Response Base, so I guess someone in the brass thinks we make a good team."
"Ah," says Garrus. It all makes sense now: When he'd first met with Shepard's squad on Menae, James had looked faintly familiar to him, and after a few days he'd asked if they'd met before. James had said no; going to the Citadel was the first time he'd met turians. Ashley had mentioned a James in her e-mails, had sent a photo with him.
"Ancient history now that she's a Spectre," James says proudly. He closes in on him. "She said they're holding the official ceremony when she gets out of hospital."
Garrus swipes; James blocks the hit. He smiles anyway. "You know, I told her two years ago she should apply for Spectre candidacy, and she always laughed at me."
James squints at him. Garrus takes the opportunity to knock him on his ass. "You didn't use to e-mail her, did you?"
"Uh," he says eloquently. "Yeah. Why?"
He offers him a hand up, but James doesn't take it, staring at him thoughtfully. "When we were on that Rapid Response Base, there were a few months when she was always writing to some guy from an old squad. She'd light up like a kid on Christmas every time he wrote back, but one time an e-mail came in on the frigate and she starts laughing her ass off: She said the guy started filling in a Spectre candidacy application for her."
"That was definitely me."
Surging up in a rush, James smashes his fist into his cheek. "You know how depressed she got when you stopped writing?" he says, getting right back into his face. He's really going for him, forcing Garrus onto the defensive. "I dragged her out to my farewell drinks when I got reassigned and you know what she did when she got wasted?"
"Hooked up with the closest turian?" Garrus suggests, because she'd been drunk both when they'd first made out and the last time they saw each other.
James headbutts him, hard, and he's so stunned that he actually lets James land a few hits before he gets his hands up again. "No, you ass, she started losing her shit about a turian pendejo who wasn't writing back. Look, I saw how our CO on Eden Prime treated her for being General Williams' granddaughter. You're a turian and you led her on!"
"I didn't 'lead her on'," Garrus protests. If anything, he's always been more honest about his feelings. "I know I screwed up but I never led her on."
"You made her worry," James returns, and he throws him to the floor in a move Garrus really should have seen coming, because he has the same tells for it as Ashley.
"You know, she'd give you a hard time for trying to defend her honor like this," Shepard calls out, and Garrus wonders how long she's been standing by the requisitions terminal. "Vega, Vakarian, let's call it a draw."
James gets off of him and stalks back to his area of the bay. "Visit Ash," he says without turning around. "Apologize."
Garrus gets to his feet. "I apologized months ago," he yells, and he rubs his scars as he heads to the elevator. He'd apologized, but he'd never explained anything more than "rocket". She deserves to know why he left and what he was doing.
His cursor blinks in the message body of an e-mail addressed to Ashley, but he doesn't know how to even start.
"You reek of human," Javik announces.
Garrus looks up from his omni-tool at him, irritated by the distraction. "We're on a human ship, in case you haven't noticed."
Javik waves a hand dismissively. "Your pheromones," he says. "That cannot be changed by where you serve. No, you smell like a human soldier who was here recently, though not for long. She left traces of duty, distrust in the starboard observation lounge. The freshest spike of physical pain in the medical bay is hers too."
If he could only use two words to describe Ashley, Garrus would go for competence and compassion, but he has to admit those are pretty accurate too. More alarming is the news that something noticeable by at least one person has been uncontrollably altered by her.
"I'm surprised the freshest pain in there isn't me," he says, trying to deflect. "Vega got me pretty good in the shuttle bay."
Four eyes roll at him. "You and this female human are joined?"
Okay, that's a new one. "What?"
With a great sigh, Javik lifts his gaze to the ceiling. "Machine. You claimed to have dispensed the Prothean language tutorial."
"I believe Javik is asking if you are in a relationship with Commander Williams," EDI says.
Ashley's e-mail address glows accusingly at him. Garrus shrugs, his mandibles drawing. "Not really."
Javik huffs, unconvinced. "Mating between species is a pointless exercise, anyway."
"I imagine it's like any cooperation between species," he says. "Building on each other's strengths to develop something better than either could do alone."
"Unless one species is subservient, that kind of cooperation would never be allowed in my cycle."
"Thanks, Javik," he drawls. "I didn't really want to know you were that kinky."
Lieutenant Victus goes down with the bomb trigger.
Garrus tells Shepard and EDI about turian culture, about putting society first, but with a lieutenant, a bomb, and a sacrifice, it's hard not to think of Kaidan, and he can never think of Kaidan without thinking of Ashley. Until Shepard started experimenting with the shore party makeups, they'd almost been two halves of a whole in his mind, introduced to him together, spending most of their time together (which he later realized was at least partially Ashley avoiding aliens), the only two humans who went ashore with Shepard. And then Saren made them two sides of a choice on Virmire, and Shepard turned Alenko-and-Williams, Ashley-and-Kaidan into Ash. He can think about Ashley without thinking about Kaidan, but he owes a lot of that to Kaidan.
He's still thinking about both of them, and how they would have made the same choice Tarquin Victus made if Shepard hadn't made the choice for them, and how Ashley almost could have been Kaidan and convinced herself she should have been, when they reach the Citadel. Instead of going straight to the refugee camp as usual, he goes to the hospital first, but her room is empty. He heads back out to the reception desk.
"Where's Commander Williams? Has she been discharged?"
The receptionist - the same guy who'd told him to get flowers - types something into his terminal, but as he waits for it, says, "Probably - she was made Spectre yesterday; I saw it on the vids. Glad we've got another human Spectre now." He glances up from the terminal. "Yeah, discharged three days ago."
She could be anywhere by now, and he didn't get to so much as congratulate her, let alone catch up with her or watch her Spectre induction ceremony. Garrus curls one hand into a fist without thinking, then deliberately releases it when the receptionist's eyes widen. It's not the receptionist's fault he wasn't here. It's a good thing that she's out; it means she's well. He has to remind himself of these things, taking a deep breath before forcing out, "Congratulations to humanity," and leaving.
"Shore leave's supposed to calm you down, not stress you out more," says Wrex, peering at him over his dinner as they head back to Tuchanka.
Garrus realizes he's still scowling. He forces his facial plates and mandibles to relax, rolling his head on his shoulders. "Ash was discharged from the hospital," he says.
"Oh, good for her," Wrex says warmly. "Wonder where she'll go next. Times like this, the galaxy needs another Spectre with a quad."
Finally, a reason to smile, or at least smirk, which is almost the same thing. "She definitely doesn't have a quad."
It's not that good a joke, he knows that, but he's pretty proud of himself when Wrex guffaws.
"Did she say anything to you about her first Spectre assignment?" Wrex says eventually, though his grin remains. "She was still waiting when I last talked to her."
Garrus looks at him ready to be incredulous, before he remembers that Wrex missed most of their drama, and as far as he could tell when he'd come up for air from datapads and injured soldiers, hadn't seen how busy the cargo hold could get. "I never visited her." When she was awake, anyway.
Wrex stares. "Even I visited, and I'm not the one who mated with her."
"I tried," he snaps, and then he shakes his head, stopping himself before he can demand details or demand to know why Wrex didn't tell him. "You were right: Long distance is for pyjaks."
"Of course I'm right," says Wrex. "Who cheated?"
"No one cheated," he says, rolling his eyes. "I'm just... bad at staying in touch."
"You are a pyjak," Wrex assesses.
"I know," he says. All he needs is a chance to tell her. "Anyway, speaking of quads, and mating, I bet you're excited about the cure."
As Wrex starts complaining about Mordin's invasive medical procedures, Garrus laughs along in the appropriate places, and decides to try and find out where Ashley was assigned once they get back from curing the genophage. Maybe Shepard has access to other Spectres' info, or maybe Liara can get into the files. He just wants one reunion with her to go right.