This little work of fanfiction is dedicated to all of my dear friends who have put up with me through its creation.

To Nihlus, for being the reason I fell in love with Mass Effect the way I have-thank you for buying me the first two games and unleashing the monster I am.

To Enky, who checked my grammar and put up with me constantly bugging her about my story and my ideas for it.

To each and every one of you who's listened to me ramble about this piece as I worked on it, not to mention as I played the games and fell willingly into Garrus/Shepard hell, not to mention cheered me on to keep me typing.

Last, but most certainly never least, to Sama who's been there helping me hone my writing skills for several years now-my dear co-writer who knows nothing about Mass Effect but was happy to let me rant and rave to her about it anyway.

And now….on to the story.

Hell and High Water

1

The quiet rush of bubbles filled the silent room and Garrus slowly lifted his chin from where it rested against his hands. There was an ache in his neck and spine that attested to the long hours he'd sat there, unmoving. A gargoyle in the dim blue glow of the fishtanks. His eyes tracked the shadow of the fish across the floor, liquid and drifting.

Slowly, idly, he allowed his fingers to unfurl, stretching them until he felt the pull of the tendon between thumb and forefinger at their full extent. Garrus uncurled, stood in slow movements, and then strode forward. As he headed for the door, he struck the side of his fist against the button near the tanks, unleashing a cloud of food into the waiting, hungry mouths in the water.

He prowled the ship, eerie in its silence. The steps of the skeleton crew seemed muffled beneath the echoing quiet. Eventually his wandering took him to the mess, and from there back to the CIC, two bottles clutched in one hand. Without the galaxy map, or the holographic model of the Normandy the CIC seemed as empty as the vacuum of space.

Joker sat at the controls, and Garrus dangled one of the bottles down over his shoulder. Without a word, Joker took it and settled back in his seat. Just as quietly, Garrus stepped over the slight wall and curled himself into EDI's empty place.

"Thanks," Joker said, then gave a quiet sound and settled lower in the pilot's seat. The silence consumed them as they downed their drinks. The Normandy purred on, eerily quiet without her sentience and without her Commander.

An unfamiliar sky gleamed with stars and three moons outside of the Normandy, framed by the tops of massive trees. Garrus studied it for a moment. Finally, he broke the quiet. "Any news?" he asked, voice subdued. If anyone on the ship could grasp exactly how Garrus felt in that moment...it was Joker.

"From the outside?" Joker said in a rush, and Garrus could tell just from that what his answer was. Joker always used that tone when he was trying to get the bad news out of the way. "Nothing. Zilch. Zippo. As far as I can tell either the Normandy's long range comms are fried, or all the comm buoys between us and there are. Internal though? Traynor got the short range communications up and running, and internal is working like a dream. Life support didn't suffer any damage, and we're almost done analyzing the atmosphere out there soooo…."

The fact that Joker made no move to comment on the state of the ship's AI wasn't something Garrus was going to point out. If he hadn't given up on Shepard, then he doubted that Joker had given up on EDI.

Joker drummed his fingers against his bottle, shifting in the dim orange glow of the Normandy's controls. He could have been anywhere else in the ship right now, but here he was...just like Garrus had spent the last several hours tucked away in the Captain's Cabin.

"Adam's came up to report on the state of the drive core," Joker said finally. "He says it's going to take a while...that they're not even sure what the trouble is. He didn't find it funny when I suggested everything either."

Lifting his bottle, Garrus gestured toward the world outside of the ship's windows. "Any idea if we have hostiles out there?"

"Yeah," Joker drawled, "about that. See, the proximity scanners were...y'know, tied to the AI."

Garrus grimaced, fingers clenching tight on his own bottle. "Right," he said. "Once we know what the atmosphere is like I'll take a squad out to scout a perimeter and set up short range sensors."

"Sounds good."

Garrus glanced over. Joker looked and sounded more subdued than he'd ever seen him before. Except, maybe, that time at the memorial to Shepard when she'd died the first time. A terrible ache clenched in his chest, and it took everything he had to fight down the want to tear the whole damned galaxy apart. He'd told her, hadn't he? He'd kill anyone—anything—that dared hurt her again.

The cold, hard fact of it was that he couldn't. He was here, trapped with the rest of the Normandy's crew. They were all entirely ineffectual, and no power in this realm or the next would give him the ability to be back there, ripping apart the Reapers that were in Shepard's way.

Instead, he'd been taken out by a Mako of all things, and he'd had to leave her to face the end alone. Somewhere, she could very well be dead or dying and he—

Garrus cut that line of thought off immediately and stood. "I'll go do another sweep of the interior," he said gruffly, bronchial in his hurt. Joker didn't say a word as he left, and for that Garrus was grateful.

Neither of them had it in them to deal with their pain mirrored back at them. Not right now.

His drifting steps took him back to the elevator, and back to the Crew deck. From there, he hesitated. Either he could return to the battery, or… Garrus swung his head to the side and set off for the Port Observation deck. His gait was growing more staggered and unsure than he was used to, which meant the painkillers that Chakwas had doped him up on earlier were wearing off.

When he limped in, Tali was already hunched over the bar. Like a jumbled, multi-colored city, an array of bottles stood around her along with forsaken straws and a few discarded glasses. She didn't look up as he made his way over to her. When he grabbed one of her many bottles her head jerked, and she swayed on her stool. "Oh. Hey, Garrus."

"How much have you had to drink?" he asked dryly, well aware that the amount was more than enough to be completely drunk.

"Some," Tali said, forming each word with careful, drunk precision. "And then some more, maybe." She choked on a titter that was more than a bit hysterical. She turned, leveling a look at him through the filmy covering of her mask, eyes gleaming in narrow slits behind it. "Are you going to tell me to stop?"

Garrus set his own bottle down on the bartop with a clatter, and let himself fold into the stool next to her. He stretched his aching leg out and rubbed at his hip absently through his armor. "Not if you're going to let me help you work through all the dextro alcohol we've got left."

"Deal," she warbled as if it were some great victory, and maybe it was. They could use every little victory they could get. She flapped one hand at him and the bottles in invitation. Three fingers, he noted, so normal and yet—

This, he felt, was a special type of hell. Reaching out, he picked up one of the glasses, eyed it speculatively then used it to mix himself some hard-hitting, vile concoction. Garrus raised his glass in a toast, uncertain which end of their era he was toasting to. Either they'd spend the rest of their short lives wondering before the Reapers slaughtered them, or there was a war that had been won without them knowing.

Without them at all.

In the end, Shepard wasn't here to raise a glass with them, and wasn't that just the biggest punch in the gut of them all?

"To Rannoch," Tali said, surprisingly sober and quiet. He wasn't surprised that she was feeling the same thing about this moment that he was.

"To Palaven," he offered, "and Earth."

"And Thessia. To the whole galaxy."

And Garrus, well...he could definitely drink to that, even if in his mind he thought: To hell with the Galaxy. To the only person who gave everything for it. To Shepard.

He hated that a part of him was already thinking of her like she was dead. Garrus drowned his cynicism in his glass, swallowing it back until he felt like he was going to burn up from the inside out.

More than a few drinks later, Tali was swaying on her stool and he was sure she was dangerously close to slipping off at any moment. She didn't though, just kept determinedly matching him drink to drink—he would knock one back and she'd slurp at her straw. Garrus had long ago lost track of their meandering conversation after it had delved into bittersweet reminiscence of exploits past. They could spend forever talking about the old SSV Normandy and the good ol' days, like weary veterans on Palaven.

The only thing that really told him how much he'd imbibed was the fact that the pain in his leg and side had gone numb just like he'd hoped.

"How're things in the AI core?" he asked out of the blue, his vocals twanging drunkenly.

Tali's lone response came out as a rude noise that made her drink froth and bubble, so he let it drop. He could only imagine. He'd been in the medbay when the ship went down, and he'd been able to smell the stink of fried electronics as he hobbled out and headed for the elevator.

Hours later, Tali lay curled up and sound asleep on one of the sofas. Garrus leaned against the observation window, his arm braced against it over his head, and watched as the system's sun slowly crested the trees. One of the planets three moons was still a visible sliver to the left of the rising sun.

Behind him, the door shushed open. Turning his head, Garrus focused on the Liara's reflection in the glass before peering back at her. She came to a stop near his side and stared out through the window. "The results from the atmospheric scans are in," she offered in her quiet, lilting voice. "It's breathable to all species. Nothing worse than a higher than average amount of oxygen." Garrus tilted his head and her, and she shrugged philosophically. "Joker said you'd been asking. Kaidan and James are in the Shuttle Bay."

With a faint huff of acknowledgement, Garrus pushed away from the window. His entire body protested the motion, nausea roiling and his head throbbing—scratch that, his entire body felt like it was throbbing. "Let them know I'm on my way."

Liara inclined her head, then turned to leave. She stopped before she'd even taken a step and looked back at him. "Garrus," she said, and he tensed. Liara let out a breath, and moved to continue on her way. "If you need me, you know where to find me."

The tension slowly drained out of him once the door was shut. He should have known that Liara wasn't going to ask if he was alright. Garrus had come to hate that question lately. Sighing out through his nose, he straightened painfully and bumped his fist against the button to close the shutters. At least Tali would be able to wake up without the sun searing into her eyes through her mask.

First things first: Showers, Chakwas, then get his guns.

When Garrus finally limped off the elevator Kaidan was sitting on an innocuous crate in the CIC, Joker hunched beside him. The conversation they were having cut off at his approach. "Where's Vega?" he asked, coming to a halt before the pair.

"Right behind ya, Scars," James said, and Garrus looked back to see him step off the elevator with a beacon slung over one broad shoulder. "You sure you can keep up with us?"

Garrus snorted. "I got lucky," he drawled, "that tank just popped my hip out of place. Chakwas shoved it back in and told me I'm still pretty."

James smirked at him, looking him up and down. "I think you should confront her for lying her pants off, man."

With a scoff, Garrus tossed his head back. "Don't worry, I can still run laps around you even if I'm bruised from talon to fringe."

He'd been lucky. Not everyone could survive having a tank thrown at them with little more than a full body bruise and a dislocated hip. But then, not everyone survived taking an anti-aircraft rocket to the face either. Garrus had done both. It was a shame he felt like that's where his luck ran out lately.

"C'mon you two," Kaidan said, pushing himself up off the crate. "Let's get this done. We'll all feel better for it."

Garrus had to admit that Kaidan had stepped up. He was a calm voice of reason and authority, and they all knew he knew what he was doing. That didn't stop Garrus from feeling unnecessarily bitter about it. It felt too much like Kaidan was attempting to step into Shepard's place, fill her shoes, and hide the Shepard shaped hole that they were all feeling. It was necessary, but Garrus didn't have to like it.

"Garrus, take point. James and I will follow up with the equipment."

"On it," Garrus said, pulling his assault rifle off his back with a shrug. He wasn't sure if he ought to feel insulted or not. There was every possibility that Kaidan didn't think he was up for the heavy lifting...or he just wanted him up front since he was a damned good shot. That was another thing: He never had to second guess when it came from Shepard. He knew her too well.

While James and Kaidan each grabbed one of the side handles on the crate and hefted it up between them, Garrus strode down the hall toward the airlock and the pilot's seat. There was no way they were getting the hanger open with the way the Normandy had landed, a problem they'd have to solve later.

Joker hobbled alongside him, keeping pace for all his deficient bones and careful steps. "From what the scanners picked up, it looks like we're halfway up a ridge, or down it, depending on how you look at it."

"What are our chances of going the rest of the way down?" Garrus asked, not certain he wanted to know.

With a shrug, Joker preceded him into the airlock, James and Kaidan thumping in behind them. They stood still as the Normandy's systems synced the recycled oxygen with the higher O2 count outside. The hatch opened with a hiss, and Garrus stepped, blinking hard, out into the bright sunlight. A rush of sound hit him; wind in the leafy canopies, animal calls, the crackle and tumble of loose rock. At his side, Joker straightened up and squinted along the ridge they landed on.

"To answer your question," he said in his light, quick voice, "it looks like we're wedged in good and tight. That...is not going to buff out."

Garrus turned to follow the line of Joker's sight and snorted. The nose of the Normandy was jammed hard against jagged cut of rock and downed trees. Likely, he knew, from their very crash landing. The slope further downward didn't look too bad outside of the line of trees—nothing that Shepard hadn't driven them off of in the Mako at least.

Behind them, James gave a low whistle. "At least we've got a place with a view, yeah?"

"Leave the beacon here," Kaidan said, all business. "After we set up the perimeter sensors we'll swing back, see about hiking further up the ridge to set it up."

Garrus turned to look up along the line of the ridge. Where there weren't trees with thick, ropey vines, there was bare, cracked rock face. It wouldn't be an easy climb, and he wasn't one-hundred percent certain he'd be up for it later. "Joker," he said, "get your ass back on the ship."

"Yeah, because I was planning on staying out here and enjoying the sun." With a scoff, Joker turned and limped back into the open hatch.

None of them made a move to leave until the airlock had shut securely and the sound of the ship's decontamination sequence faded.

"Alright," Kaidan said, "let's go."

Inclining his head, Garrus stepped forward, leading the way into the thick undergrowth around the massive tree trunks. They truly were huge—some of them bigger around than the three of them could reach standing fingertips to fingertips, even with his longer-than-human arms. The vines were just as large, heavy and coiled along the branches and dripping in leaves the smallest of which were the length of Garrus' forefinger's tip to the base of his palm. At least, if they needed to further secure the Normandy's position, they could make use of the local flora.

He walked slowly, assault rifle up and the butt of it tucked against his shoulder. His visor picked up on the occasional low-range heat signature, and he'd turn to track it only for it to flicker and vanish in between the heavy growth. The sunlight was barely able to permeate the canopy high above them, leaving the world cast in thick shadows and green light. It was humid, too, not at all the dry heat of Palaven. Everything stank of rotting plant matter and a too-sweet, honey scent that reminded him of decay.

The further they pressed on, the quieter the wild-life grew, and the more on edge Garrus became. Just who, and what, could they be alerting to their presence?

Garrus' visor pinged quietly to him, a warning that they were nearing the edge of the Normandy's current short-range communications. "Here," he said, voice low and quiet. He scuffed a marker in the detritus and stepped aside to let the two human's work. Slowly, Garrus turned, sweeping his gun over the nearby tangle of undergrowth. For several long seconds, nothing moved except the rustle of the two behind him.

A glance back showed James and Kaidan had deposited the crate. Kaidan undid the latches, snapping the top open, and pulled out one of the thin sensors. Another snap sounded as he broke the seal of the self-contained battery, and then he was handing it up to James. James, in turn, jammed it firmly into the ground that Garrus had scuffed, and twisted a switch near the middle of the sensor's post, setting loose the anchors into the dirt around it.

"Number one is online and transmitting," Joker called over the short-range channel. "Good work, guys."

Just as efficiently, Kaidan had the crate shut and gestured down the slope. With a nod, Garrus set out, fiddling with his visor to lay out a grid path for them. Every twenty feet they'd stop, set up one of the proximity sensors, then continue on, slowly looping around the Normandy's landing site. The lower on the ridge they went, the thicker the tangle of growth became. Massive flowers—the source of the honey and decay scent—bowed overheard. From between them, a pair of beetles the size of Garrus' head lifted off and buzzed lazily up toward the canopy.

"Man," James hissed. "If that's the size of the bugs around here, I don't want to see the spiders. Gives me the creeps just thinking about it."

Garrus snorted quietly, taking a few more steps before marking the spot for the next sensor. An angry, reptilian hiss had the three of them freezing for a split second, before he whipped around. The only trace of the culprit was a long, whip thin, mottled green and gray tail disappearing around the thick trunk of a tree.

"We're definitely not alone out here," Garrus murmured, and James huffed out a quiet laugh.

"You think it's a relative of yours?"

Sending him a sidelong look, Garrus jerked his assault rifle at the ground. "Just put up the sensor, Vega, and we can go find some of your fellow pyjaks to hang out with later."

James held his hands up in surrender, and turned to grab the sensor from Kaidan who'd plastered on his best patient smile. Garrus turned away to squint into the deep green shadows the creature had vanished into. Nothing moved. There were no sounds. Just the distant call of some other creature, and the stirring of leaves high above them.

"Next one," Kaidan said, prompting Garrus from his listening. Garrus sent one last look into the trees, then nodded and carried on.

By the time they'd circled the Normandy's crash site and set the perimeter up, Garrus knew he wouldn't be able to make the hike up the ridge. He was limping badly as they made their way back to the ship, though neither Kaidan nor James commented on it. Garrus was many things, but completely, needlessly stupid wasn't one of them.

"I'll go check with Joker, make sure the proximity sensors are all working," he said, jerking his head at the airlock. He waggled his fingers at the pair to hand over the empty crate. "You two go and set up the distress beacon."

James slapped Garrus on the shoulder. "Good call, man. We wouldn't want anything nasty sneaking in while we're trying to get this thing set up."

"It shouldn't take us long," Kaidan said, nodding. He looked up, squinting at the sky. "Let's just hope there's someone close enough to hear us."

Garrus looked up as well. "If not now...then they will be once the fleets start to leave the Sol System." If they leave Sol, no one said. Leaning over, Garrus hooked his fingers into the handles of the crate and hefted it up. James grunted as he lifted the beacon up onto his shoulder. Garrus stood, watching the two humans as they hiked up the ridgeline for several minutes.

They should have been back at Earth. He knew that's what they were all thinking, what they all wanted. Each and every one of them hated that they weren't there. Garrus closed his eyes, remembering the searing brightness of the Reaper's attacks, the back of Shepard's head and shoulders as she whirled away and ran toward the beam.

...And he'd had to let her go, because he could barely stand. It was only thanks to Liara that he'd been upright then, reaching out for her.

He was angry that she'd gone without them, angry at Shepard for being who she was and giving everything she had right down to the end...but, at the same time, Garrus knew he wouldn't want her any other way.

Hefting the crate higher, he stepped into the airlock and listened to the decontamination system run. Once inside the ship proper, he dropped the empty crate near the hatch and limped up behind Joker's seat. "How's the perimeter working?"

"Good, good. Haven't picked up anything yet, except some of the giant fauna out there. Luckily, they don't seem interested in coming too close."

If they were lucky, the planet's native life would be too spooked to give them trouble. Garrus wasn't really the type to bank on luck, so he'd make sure his guns were all in good working order instead. For now, he stood there watching as Joker ran through a series of relays and checks. He was, Garrus knew, attempting to pick up on outside communications again—boosting the signal off the perimeter sensors by pinging it back and forth. It looked like he was having very little success.

Clasping his arms behind his back, Garrus shifted his weight off his bad leg. He stood, listening to Joker's idle chatter and jokes as the man worked. Garrus never responded, well aware that it wasn't him that they were really directed at, but a presence that wasn't there anymore.

It was a good twenty to thirty minutes later that an alert popped up, and Joker reached for it immediately. "That's the distress beacon," Joker said. "Just came online." With a flick of his hand, Joker brought the transmission online.

"This is Major Kaidan Alenko of the SSV Normandy. We've crash landed a—"

Garrus turned and limped toward the back of the CIC. He had no idea why a part of him had hoped he would hear Shepard over that transmission, when he knew full well she wasn't there. Fool's hope. Lover's hope.

Late into the night, once everyone had retired to their bunks with the taste of hope in their mouths, Garrus made his way to the elevator. It bore him upward to the Captain's Cabin where he input Shepard's passcode. The room was just as dull, and horrifically empty as it had been last night and the one before that. He forced his shoulders to relax as he stepped into the cool, blue glow of the fishtanks.

He glanced over her desk, still half expecting to see her sitting there, pouring over her personal terminal. Some of her things were disarrayed from the crash, and before he could stop himself, Garrus went about setting it to rights. He tucked a datapad into a drawer, and set the medal of honor she'd gotten back upright. Her old helmet he replaced on the shelf near the hamster cage. He snorted, unable to contain his amusement. She'd been...so insulted when her clone had tried to toss out her pets.

Leave it to Shepard to be upset about that and the way she phrased things and not that they were trapped in an air-tight vault, or that her evil clone was making off with her ship. Lightly, Garrus tapped on the glass and watched the rodent trundle out. It sat back on it's hind legs and ran tiny paws over it's round, fuzzy face. With a matter-of-fact 'squeak' the hamster ambled over to it's half empty food dish.

Turning away, Garrus paused as a frame on the floor caught his attention. It was halfway under the corner of her desk. He crouched down and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. He was momentarily blindsided by the image. It was him, and what looked like the Citadel's sky. She had to have taken it on the sly with her omni-tool that day, at the top of the Presidium.

It hit him then, harder than it had before, that she may well be gone. Garrus set the photo down on her desk and turned away. He made it to her bed—cold and empty—and sat down on the edge. The sheer loss yawned open in him. This was worse than when she'd died over Alchera, and he hadn't been that close to her.

Back then she had been someone he respected and admired. He had looked up to her as something to aspire to, and her death—for someone that had almost seemed immortal—had torn him down. No one and nothing had changed, and if Shepard couldn't change the world, then what hope did he have?

And then those six months while she was under house arrest on Earth and he was building a support base on Palaven… At least he'd known that was temporary, even if it had been a mire of how did he really feel about her, what did she feel?

This though? This...had no guarantee, no real hope. This time, Shepard may well have been dead for good because even her luck couldn't bring her back from death twice. Could it?

Garrus ran his hands over his face and yanked his visor off a little more violently than was absolutely necessary. He tossed it aside, to land on the empty side of the bed. Her side. Her bed. No matter how much time he'd started spending up here with her.

"Damn it, Shepard," he muttered into the quiet room. The anger went out of him just as fast as it had come. Garrus slumped, exhausted, and made up his mind. He popped the seals on his armor, removing each piece mechanically until he was down to his undersuit, then shifted up the bed. Snatching both pillows, he piled them up against the headboard and leaned back against them. Reclining there, Garrus tilted his head back and stared out the skylight at the unfamiliar night sky beyond.

Slowly, he felt himself drift off into an exhausted sleep.

He was woken suddenly, by the sound of the ship's alarms going off. Garrus threw himself off the bed and snatched for his effects. He scooped his visor up and settled it into place before he began sealing the latches of his armor. "Joker," he said, "what's going on?"

Joker's voice came through his ear, sounding as harassed as he felt. "We've got a breach down in the Shuttle Bay. Whatever it is, they managed to take out two of the proximity sensors before we got a full ID on them."

"At least they decided to break in next to where we keep the guns."

"That's the bright side, yeah. Kaidan's already down there with James and Cortez."

"Patch me through to them."

"On it. I'm running scans to see if we have any other breaches."

Garrus strode across the cabin, snapping the last pieces of his armor in place. When he stepped into the elevator, Kaidan spoke up in his ear. "Hey Garrus. I hear you're coming to join the party?"

"You know it," he drawled. "Do me a favor and have my guns waiting for me, would you?"

A spray of bullets punctuated the background—assault rifle, probably James—as Kaidan yelled, "Cortez, grab Garrus' guns would you?"

Garrus crouched down as the elevator began to slow to a stop. As soon as the door opened, he darted forward to crouch behind the weapon benches alongside Cortez. Almost immediately, his guns were pressed into his waiting hands. Garrus swung the sniper into place on his back and checked the assault rifle to make sure it was fully loaded—it was, of course.

Craning his head, Garrus did a quick sweep of the hangar. Kaidan was behind the weapons bench across from him and Cortez, with the mech-dog crouched and trembling at his side. James was further into the hangar, back plastered to a large crate. "So," Garrus said, "what do we have?"

"Would you believe me if I said Rachni," Kaidan asked, his voice breathy and just a bit too cheerful.

"Of course we do," Garrus muttered back. "What else would it be?" As if to affirm, one of the nasty, skittering bugs came crawling over a crate toward the back and lobbed a gooey mass of green poison and acid at James. "What are Rachni doing here? Have the Reapers—"

"I don't know. I haven't gotten a close enough look," Kaidan answered tersely, leaning around the weapon's bench to lift the Rachni and pin it against the back wall where James riddled it with holes.

Garrus swung his assault rifle onto his back and unfolded his sniper rifle. Reaching up, he tapped the side of his visor. "Tali, Liara? Where are you two?"

"Javik and I are holding a few off in Engineering," Tali responded lightly, underscored by the powerful crack of a shotgun and a whirring drone. "They're coming out of a grate down in the hold."

"We can hold them," Javik broke in, cold and detached as ever. "They will not make it up these stairs."

"There are none on the Crew deck," came Liara's calm response. "I'm keeping an ear out."

Garrus propped his rifle over the weapons bench and sighted down the scope as another pair of Rachni crawled out from behind the crates. Inhale...exhale… He squeezed the trigger, a feeling of cool satisfaction flowing through him when one insectoid head exploded like an overripe melon.

"Garrus," Kaidan called, waving a hand at him. "You and Cortez can cover us while James and I push for their point of entry."

"On it," Garrus said firmly, and in the next second Kaidan was diving out of cover and storming up the center of the hangar. As he went, he gunned down the small swarm of tiny Rachni rushing them. Garrus took another shot, blowing the leg off one up on the crates, then dove across the open space between the weapon benches to take the place Kaidan had vacated.

He set his sniper rifle back in place and pulled the trigger almost before he'd sighted. Another Rachni went down, sliding off one of the shuttles. It twitched and screeched until James filled it with holes. A closer rattle of assault rifle fire took out a second Rachni about to pounce from the crates, and James lifted his hand with a hoot. "Nice shooting, Esteban!"

Across from Garrus, Cortez snorted. "I did learn how to shoot you know!"

"I know. Just take the compliment."

Garrus lined up another shot, smiling. It was moments like this that he could almost forget that they were trapped in a downed ship on some backwater planet, somewhere in the galaxy. His next shot was knocked askew when the bulk of the mech beside him banged against his knee. He hissed, the jostling sending a jolt of pain right into his hip. Garrus glanced down and aside at the thing which, somehow, managed to look up at him pathetically. He sighed, and reached down to pat it on it's back. "Out of all the programs on this ship," he muttered, "how it is that you're the only one still functional…" The dog just leaned into his hand and then his side.

Turning back to his scope, he tracked Kaidan and James, occasionally picking off anything that popped up ahead of them. It wasn't a long run to the hangar doors, and they reached it shortly. James let out a low whistle.

"That's not gonna be easy to fix." He leaned forward, and fired a burst around the crates, then nodded at Kaidan.

Kaidan ducked around the crates, then stopped. Holding up his hand, he motioned the rest of them forward. Garrus stood and strode down the length of the hangar, Cortez at his side, and the mech meekly following them. "They melted right through the hangar doors," Kaidan said grimly at their approach.

Garrus let a thoughtful hum rumble through his throat and crouched down next to one of the corpses. He tucked his sniper rifle in between his cowl and his neck as he stared at it. "I amend my question," he said slowly, reaching out a hand and letting his omni-tool flare to life. "What are regular Rachni doing here?"

Next to him, Kaidan dropped into a crouch as well, then grimaced, blew out a breath, and rocked back on his heels. "Your guess is as good as mine. You guys know more about what Cerberus gets up to then I do."

It was meant harmlessly, Garrus knew that, but given the past...Well, he'd reign in his want to kick Kaidan in the shin until later. Maybe he'd ask him for a sparring match. To, you know, perfect his work against biotics.

"When we let them hang around," Garrus said, drawing out the words 'hang around' pointedly, "there was no working on crazy Rachni experiments."

"I know," Kaidan said, and he sounded a little guilty. Garrus knew that he and Shepard had worked the whole thing out, and that was that. It wasn't like it was the rest of them that Kaidan had accused of being a traitor. So long as Shepard was good with him, the rest of them were. That didn't mean Garrus couldn't needle him a little sometimes. They all needed a little needling now and again. "I just meant—"

"It's fine." Garrus held up one hand, stopping him from continuing. "No, really. I mean it. I was just pulling your leg." He smirked over at him, making the expression as plain and easily readable for a human as possible. The poor things just...struggled so hard to understand the intricacies of other races' body language sometimes. Shepard was a jewel among them on that front, and even she still had her problems.

Kaidan huffed out a laugh. "Right...right. Anyway…" He trailed off and stared pensively down at the Rachni before them, his hands tangled together in front of his lips.

Giving voice to another thoughtful hum, Garrus spoke into his comm again, "Tali, how are things up there?"

"Fine. There don't seem to be any more of them here."

"There're a few up on top of the ship," Joker said, cutting in. "I think they're trying to get through."

Kaidan rose as soon as Joker started speaking, and started up the hangar toward the elevator. "James, you and Cortez stay here. See if you can move a few crates to block that entry point," he said as he went. Into the comm he continued, "Tali, can you get into the ducts and make sure we don't have any surprises? Javik, hang back in case she needs backup."

"Affirmative," Tali muttered.

"Liara, can you meet Garrus and me? The three of us can head on out and see if we can't get them away from the ship."

Liara made a soft noise of confirmation. "On my way."

It threw him off, watching Kaidan step into command again so suddenly, and Garrus realized he'd been expecting to hear Shepard barking at them over the comm again. His expression pinched as he stared down at the Rachni.

"Garrus?"

Looking up, he found Kaidan waiting for him, halfway to the elevator. Garrus stood, shaking the cobwebs from his head as he started after him. "Well," he drawled, "so much for any of us getting that good nights sleep."