After The Collectors: Defiant-Anjeru and Raiden The Ripper

It was dark, desolate, the trees dead or dying around her. Shadows danced along the edges of the fog. A child ran by, that same child that she had failed to save on Earth; she tried to run after him, but she was slow, sluggish, and it felt as if she were running through sand. Whispers fluttered in the darkness around her – Ashley Williams, Wrex Urdnot – taunting her with her failures. Finally she saw the child kneeling and she pushed herself further, harder, her body sweating, lungs burning; she had to get him, she had to! Her hand shot out but when she reached him, there was that horrid sound of the Reapers and then the fire, eating the child and she tried, tried to reach him, throwing herself forward...only to wake up in her bed, sweaty, panting, and alone.

She groaned and scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to slow her heart rate. The dreams were getting worse, little bit by little bit, but she had to keep it together. There was so much riding on her, so much more than ever before. With a soft sigh, she let her eyes fall shut and dozed briefly, waking this time to the much more pleasant sensation of Garrus' hand combing through her hair.

She smiled softly, a little more relaxed now. “Well that is a good thing,” she chuckled, turning her head slightly to kiss his wrist before she sat up and stretched. The nightmare lingered, making her appetite iffy at best, but what he had done was romantic as hell and she wasn't about to put him off.
 
He can smell the adrenaline on her, the fear, the panic, really... and he looks guilty at not being there to aid her in overcoming that terror. "Sorry. Bad dreams?" he asks quietly, helping her get upright, and then sliding a tray onto her lap.
He settles down with his own tray, and smiles at her, ripping it open, and looking hungrily at the food within, bluish meat, more of that blue bread, and a small vial of something purplish, which he picks up and smiles at. "Apha concentrate. Better than nothing." he says, and then sets it back down.
"I didn't mess up the food too badly, did I?"
 
"Yeah, I guess you could say that," she murmured as he helped her sit up, giving him a reassuring smile as he slid the tray of pancakes into her waiting lap. She stared at it thoughtfully for a moment, then took up the fork and cut herself a slice; she was a bit wary, but she kept her poker face on as she slid the bite of pancake into her mouth. It was fluffy, and tasted almost right on, and he hadn't burnt them. She chewed it, and swallowed it, before giving a teasing grin to her Turian. "Hell, Garrus, not bad for your first try. They're almost perfect." She took another bite, then chuckled as she pointed toward his own breakfast. "Looks more appealing than your Turian food, for sure," she teased.
 
The Turian looks guilty, still, as she speaks, and then settles back as she starts to eat. "Well. Now we know that there's one species' food I can cook." he murmurs, using a knife to cut the meat, and then eating, seeming dissatisfied. "It's an MRE, Anvi... I don't think this is genuine apaterae." he mutters, making a face before taking a bite of his bread. "The bread is real, at least." he mutters.
He looks at her, smirks, and then leans in, lightly lifting her hand and nipping her fingers. "I'm glad I've managed not to poison you." he says, teasing, and then leans back, getting to work on the MRE with an unhappy sound.
 
She chuckles at how displeased he seems with the Turian food; not genuine, hm? Perhaps there was something she could do about that, now that she was in charge of the Normandy once more. Citadel always had the best supplies. They were bound to have to stop there at some point, regardless. Let it be a surprise though, she decided, not mentioning a word. She finishes the pancakes and sets the plate aside, nodding with a smile. "Yeah, that would be bad. Commander poisoned during the Reaper invasion," she almost laughed with how absurd it seemed; poisoning seemed so minuscule compared to the big picture these days.
 
He chuckles quietly as she speaks. "Poisoned from spending time with her turian boyfriend, no less. Rather a poor reason for losing the war." he says, shaking his head in amusement. He leans across the table again, finishing his food, and lightly lifts her arm, biting the inside of her wrist carefully. "But... I hope you'd consider it worth it." he teases. "So... Commander... What's next on the agenda?" he asks, sobering somewhat, his hand still lightly upon hers, but a clear shift in his body language, recognizing the need for actual... business, at some point along the way. "You mentioned a summit, I think?"
 
Shepard shivered softly, a soft nibble of her lip as he bit at the inside of her wrist; Spirits, how she had missed him all these months. Holding onto his hand still, she let out a soft chuckle. "Definitely worth it," she teased, before giving a soft sigh. "Sorta, yeah. Primarch Victus wants to promise reinforcements for Earth, but he can't, not until some of the heat is taken off of Palaven. Sooo...I will have to meet with Wrex, see if we can get some Krogan support for Palaven." She sighed. "Not going to be easy, somehow I already know that, even if Wrex and I did become good friends back in the day. He isn't exactly the...accommodating type." She grumbled something about all Krogan being like that.

"Meeting will be Primarch Victus, Wrex, the Salarian Dalatrass, and I."
 
Garrus grimaces as she speaks, lightly making sure he's not holding her hand too awkwardly, and rubbing his thumb across her wrist. "So first things first... we take care of the Krogan. Make sure that Tuchanka's safe for now, and probably deal with some extreme demand from our dear Urdnot friend." he mutters. "Do you want me there, too, Anvi? Or would you prefer not? Might keep anyone from being too stupid." he offers, sounding, somewhat uncomfortably, worried.
His mandibles flicker lightly, and he gets up from the table, releasing her hand, a light smile on his face.
 
"I don't see how it could hurt." She paused. "Much." With a teasing grin on her face, she stood as well and stretched languidly. She pressed a soft kiss to his lip plates before she moved through the cabin and dressed herself in her regulation blues; she hated them, all stiff and formal, but when you stood as the very voice of your people, it was best to present oneself respectfully and well dressed while doing so. Then she combed her hair before she turned to him. "I'll inform Joker of our destination. Should be an hour before Wrex and the Dalatrass arrive. You and Primarch Victus can then meet me in the briefing room, okay?"
 
The turian grins at her, and nods quietly, rolling his shoulders as he pulls his clothes from the previous night back on, and bows his head. "I won't be late. And, obviously... if you need me before the briefing, I'll be in the main battery." he offers with a smile.
He leaves not long after that, only giving her a light nip on the shoulder as he departs, and spends his time waiting within his post, as he'd said.
Mandible still scarred, chest still scarred, but heart... and spirit? Less so, now. Much less so. No longer reduced to being a shadow of himself.
He dresses himself in his armor, for lack of any actual formal clothing, seeing as he'd been pulled from a warzone, and then settles down by the terminal, humming beneath his breath as he works, eyes flickering over the code the machine displays.
"Damnit. Always, when I'm gone..." he mutters, and tweaks the machine, settling into the old routine of calibrations until it's finally back to, if not peak, then at least acceptable levels.
 
(I got distracted with fanfiction, or else the post would have come sooner. XD)

Shepard chuckled as he left her quarters; of course, where else would she find Garrus besides the main battery? It was nice to see things hadn't changed, not so much really, in the months they'd been separated. Well, besides the invasion of a sentient-unstoppable-destroy-all-organic-life race of super machines. With a soft sigh, she took the elevator to the CIC and went to find her loyal - if somewhat sarcastic, unorthodox - pilot.

It wasn't long before she was reunited with her old Krogan buddy Wrex, the two meeting with a 'soft' headbutt in greeting. Then they clasped arms, like the soldiers they were, and spent a little bit of time sharing war stories. Then before she knew it, the Dalatrass was here, looking upon Wrex with obvious disdain. They went to the briefing room and waited until Victus, and Garrus, joined them.

The meeting didn't go well, as she'd expected - nope, it went far worse than not well. What did Wrex want in return for his cooperation? A damned cure for the Genophage. Talk about a demand. It was Shepard's belief that the Krogan race had suffered long enough for their mistake and would do what she could, but given the glint on the Dalatrass' eye and her adament refusal to help, she knew their was trouble ahead.

Once the meeting was over, she radioed Joker and told him to set a course for Sur'kesh, and then Garrus and Vega to meet her in the shuttle bay where they would gear up. "Missions clear; get the female Krogan off of Sur'kesh. Should be easy enough..." She trailed off, then sighed with a chuckle. "I hope. Things have a habit of going horribly awry when I'm around."

Wrex harrumphed, and she shook her head again with a small laugh.
 
((SoR? Or something else?))

Garrus arrives alongside Victus to the briefing, engaged in quiet conversation with the Primarch, the somewhat sibilant sounds of Turian flickering between them, unintelligible to anyone but the two, and, possibly, Shepard and the Dalatrass, depending on whether Garrus' mate had studied it during her... detainment, and if the dalatrass was competent in intelligence work.

The male settles himself down between Shepard and Victus, offering a grin to Wrex. Of course the genophage came up-what else would Wrex want?-and of course Shepard agreed.
"Look at it this way, Anvi... if we don't have the krogan's help, we'll be dead. If we do help them, we're liable to win. I don't even want to think about what Wrex used to do to Geth and Husks." he says, laughing quietly.

The Turian armors up swiftly, getting his weapons slung across his back, a mattock, his Widow, and a sizable knife tucked into a sheathe on his belt. He exchanges a few awkward looks with Vega, and then offers a hand, reintroducing himself, complimenting the male on his work, back on Menae... and then tromping inside the shuttle to settle down.
 
(It is taking me SO long to read that...but no, I was working on one of my own. Lol.)

Garrus' words had the desired affect and Shepard's mood was lifted a bit, but still, Wrex had dumped an awfully tall order on them. The mission started off rocky, what with Wrex wanting free reign of the Salarian facility. She couldn't help but snicker, though; Krogan air drop? I mean, really, Wrex. Come on. He grumbled about having to remain under guard, but didn't cause too much trouble, which left Vega, Garrus, and Shepard to continue through the facility.

"Mordin!" Shepard was shocked to find the Salarian doctor here, and as Wrex's mole, that much was apparent, but she was glad for it. It was always nice to have a friendly face. They found out that only one female had survived and Shepard was determined to take her home, whether or not this was about the genophage and its cure. Just when all was going well, all hell broke loose; Cerberus attacked and they had to fight their way out while protecting Mordin and the Krogan.
 
((-chuckles- I know... It took me about 2 months before I could get through all of it... and that was only to 118. takes me about 2 hours/chapter now... so i don't even wanna think...))

Garrus laughs quietly as they move on. His mood rapidly worsens, and he finally winds up swearing perpetually in turian, krogan, and even, rather awkwardly in english. THe only upside is the fact that Wrex is in good spirits, Mordin's here, and they get to kill Cerberus.
Bullet after bullet after bullet, Mattock repeatedly smashing him in the shoulder, punching through armor, through cover to kill the humans.
"I have to ask, Shepard... How in hell am I going to give you an exciting relationship compared to this?" he asks, laughing quietly as he takes cover for what feels like the hundredth time, swapping to his rifle instead.
 
(Yeah...it's going to take me awhile. Especially in between writing my own stuff. Lol.)

"Hell, Garrus, it's been like this since we met, or have you forgotten?" She laughed, teasing him good naturally. She flashed him a grin, her eyes saying everything she couldn't say in words at a moment like this; with both of them being soldiers, they could lose each other in the blink of an eye. Something they knew all too well considering what had happened to her after Saren. "I'd be more worried about what we'll do to pass the time once we shove the Reapers back into whatever black hole they crawled out of."

Finally, the reached the top floor where they'd landed and the shuttle was almost ready to come around and get them. Just when she thought it wall all done and over with, watching the capsule holding the female Krogan move over head, Cerberus had other ideas. "ATLAS!" She cried in warning, rolling behind a control console for cover when the massive electronic beast landed with a loud crack of noise. Her N7 Valkyrie lined up with her shoulder, she fired her rounds to dent at its armor. The pilot swung the massive beast her way and fired a rocket at the control console, sending Shepard flying back into some crates stacked nearby.

"Distract it!" She groaned, hefting herself up as quickly as she could, tasting the copper tang of blood on her lip. She couldn't have it focused on her to do what she planned.
 
The male laughs at her retort. "That's what I mean. Life's going to be downright boring once the Reapers are dead, and Mr. TIM has a bullet between his eyes." he points out, and then follows her.

Oh, shit. An atlas... never fun.
He swears when the rocket is fired at her, and a burst of memory floods his mind. White-hot pain, fear, rage, and then darkness. The sound of a gunship exploding, and then Anvi's face in his...
But that was then, and this is now.
He fires steadily at the Atlas, round after round slamming into the glass of the cockpit, cracking and occluding the yellow pane, forcing the operator to more or less guess at their locations. At least now Anvi can pull off whatever fool thing she's looking to do...
 
Shaking her head to push off the cobwebs at the edges of her vision, she catapults into the open as soon as the Atlas has turned its front away from her direction. She slung her Valkyrie onto her back, it automatically folding in on itself and latching to her armor. With a burst of speed forced from her legs, she vaulted toward the Atlas and leaped onto its back. With a grit of her teeth, she started climbing it as the operator tried to swing her off. At the top she fired up her omni-blade and shoved it, with all her strength, into the glass separating her and the driver of the Atlas. He was swinging wildly about now, trying to shake her off. She pulled her omni-blade free, took a grenade from her belt and dropped it inside after arming it.

"Fire in the hole!" She called out as she leaped free from the Atlas, the arm hitting her on her way and sending her rolling across the ground. The Atlas door hissed open as the operator tried to escape, but he was too slow and suddenly the grenade exploded, rocking the Atlas into a broken heap of mechanical bits. The operator was...well, dead, to say the least, if all the blood was any indication.
 
The turian looks startled as Shepard leaps onto the Atlas, and does his best to keep the troopers in the area from hitting her... and then swears as the atlas' cockpit just... detonates. He yanks his head down behind cover, hearing a rather large shard of metal whistle through where his teeth were not a second earlier.
"Well. That was rather spectacular!" he calls out, popping out of cover and firing again, knocking a trooper on his ass, the mattock's heavy round putting the majority of his head onto the wall behind him. "Clear?"
 
"Clear!" Shepard stumbled from debris where she had fallen after the flailing Atlas arm had smacked into her. She shook her head and steadied herself, doing a double take of the area. Once she was certain it was all clear, she signaled to Wrex to land the shuttle, where he made some overly gentlemanly show of propriety to the Krogan female, who was clearly not impressed. Two Cerberus troopers, stragglers she was sure, tried to rush them but the Krogan took the shotgun from Wrex and shot them. Clearly, as she stated, she could handle herself.

"Why are you here?" Shepard demanded, crouching over the gurgling body of one of the troopers. He merely strangled on his own blood, reaching out to her, before he fell limp and died. She kicked the body and stormed back to the shuttle with a mutter - something or another about blowing a hole in Timmy's head - and signaled Vega, Garrus, and Mordin to follow.
 
The Turian gets back to his feet, and watches, amused, as the Krogan blows a sizable chunk out of the two troopers.
He stoops beside the corpses once Shepard's done the brief 'interrogation... and pulls of their helmets. "Ugh. You were't lying." he mutters, shaking his head.
He strides after the others, and clings to the side of the shuttle, muttering obscenities in Turian, and looking at Shepard from behind his helmet. Unhurt... the only blood on her, is the troopers'.
"Well. That could've gone better."
 
Shepard sighed dramatically and nodded from where she sat close by, near Garrus. "Yeah, little ol' Timmy is losing it more and more every day," she muttered. It wasn't long before they made it back to the SR-2 Normandy. She pulled off her helmet as they unloaded into the Normandy's shuttle bay. "I forget you weren't on Mars with us when we first found out what he was doing to his soldiers. I can say I'm glad I got out when I did," she grumbled, though in reality she had never liked working or even cooperating with Cerberus and TIM.

"I'll need to go by the War room and see what needs our immediate attention, but would you like to grab something in the mess hall once I'm done?" she asked Garrus.
 
Garrus grimaces quietly, an unpleasant look on a Turian face, mandibles tucked in against his jaw, teeth clenched. "I wish we hadn't had to deal with them to begin with, he admits. "Wish they'd just been good enough to give you back to me, then cut the strings. ut that's not exactly plausible." he admits, chuckling as he strips out of his gear in the bay, settling away his belongings. "I'd be glad to, Anvi. So long as you don't mind eating at the aliens' table." he teases, leaning down and biting her shoulder lightly before stepping away. "I'll put my things away, then I'll be waiting for you."
 
Shepard sighed contently, then straightened herself. She grinned. "Hell, they gave me all kinds of crap for being an 'alien lover' back in the old days, I'm sure I can handle it." She winks as she strips herself out of her gear, before nodding, almost to herself. "I'll come find you shortly then." With a smile, she heads off toward the elevator. She takes it to the CIC and wanders through the scanner and down past the meeting room to find the Primarch and Wrex in the War Room. They both tell her about immediate missions that need her attention - both insisting theirs is more important than the others - before they allow her to study the general military strength terminal. Which wasn't saying anything optimistic. Not that she expected it to.

She pulled on the collar of her fatigues with a soft sigh before she turned and headed back to the elevator to take it down to the Mess Hall, where she gathered a bowl of Rupert Stew and a cup of coffee for herself.
 
The turian, true to his promise, does go by the battery first... but finds himself on a comm instead of trying to get to the mess, struggling to keep a good signal as he speaks to his father, panicked as the man says Solana's been hurt... and then the scream of a reaper, something about the shuttles... and the line goes dead.
The turian snarls, and slams his hand into the comm console, making the aerogel spasm for a moment before reverting. Cursing in every language he can think of, the male simply lays his head in his hands, covering his eyes.
After a time, he forces himself to his feet, and grabs an MRE from the mess sergeant, simply settling down across from Shepard, and eating slowly, mechanically.
 
Shepard frowned as Garrus sat across from her, not as oblivious to how he handles himself as he probably thinks. She wonders if she should press it, ask him what's wrong, but she probably already knew that answer. Palaven had been as bad off as Earth when they'd picked up Garrus from its' moon. Earth...she hated thinking about it, about the kid and his shuttle being shot down by a Reaper as the Normandy rescued her from the mess her home had become. And Anderson...she hoped he was okay. Stubborn ass had decided to stay behind and help those still there. She could admire him for it, but he had been like a father to her since she was younger and so of course she worried.

She shook her head slightly to herself, to clear the thoughts, before she finished her coffee. Half her food lay untouched when she returned her tray. Then she laid a hand on Garrus' shoulder softly. "Something you want to talk about Garrus? You seem...off."
 
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