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“I need to go file a report.”
“You’re going to the medbay.”
“Garrus I’m not kidding, I have to get everything down-”
“Faust you’re going to see Chakwas and you’re going now,” he snapped. Shepard glared at him but didn’t technically have enough feeling in her limbs to put up a proper fight.
“You realize I’m the Commander, right?” she asked.
“Shepard I outrank you so many times over it’s almost embarrassing,” he returned shortly.
“Uh yeah, with the turians maybe-”
“It counts.”
“Does not.”
“Yes it does. Right here, right now, it counts and you’re going to go get looked over in the medbay and stop arguing with me about it.” He was pissed. It hadn’t been the reaction that she’d been expecting, honestly- relief, maybe, but he was so mad he could barely contain himself. It wasn’t even his regular sort of mad where his fringe flared up- it was flat against his head now, with his mandibles drawn tightly against his face.
“I’m a Spectre.”
“You’re an irresponsible human in the Alliance Navy, soon to be an irresponsible human in the medbay.” When she’d gotten into the Atlas to dive down to find Leviathan, she would have pegged him as hesitant. That was understandable- Shepard had gone very few places without Vakarian, and this was one of them. He’d been angry in the shuttle back to the Normandy- she thought. She couldn’t quite remember- everything was sort of blurry until hanging up the comm with Bryson.
Then he’d just picked her up like she was a Quarian and started storming his way over to the medbay.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she said, trying to reassure him.
“Would you stop fighting me? You’re the only person I know who gets so injured she can’t stand up as two brutes charge at her, and still refuses a trip to the hospital.” She got the sense she wasn’t helping.
“I’m fine. Leviathan rooted around in my mind for a while and then it was gone. I’m just a little tipsy from sharing space in my head with someone who isn’t me,” she told him. “Or you.” An afterthought, but true enough.
“Fascinating. You’re still going to get checked,” he said firmly, and that was that.
. . . . .
Chakwas prescribed headache pills and some rest, with no biotic activity for twelve hours. That would work- she needed a nap anyway, and hauled herself up to her cabin already fully prepared to knock out.
Garrus was waiting for her, sitting on her couch and trying in vain to organize records of turian military support on distant planets. He snapped to attention when she walked in, glaring at her just as impressively as he had been a few hours ago. “We need to talk,” he said sternly.
Anxiety spiked inside her and she tried to very calmly make it over to her bed. Her motion to sit was more of a shaking collapse, but he didn’t call her out on it. “Look I don’t understand-”
“I know you don’t which is why I’m going to tell you,” he said. That alleviated some of the panic inside her- Garrus knew her, knew she didn’t like to try and guess how people were feeling, knew that she struggled with understanding people’s reactions to her. “First, I want you to ask me how stressful it is to love Commander Shepard.”
“Uh. How stressful?”
“I am painfully aware of every time you charge, use melee biotics, or are otherwise standing directly in the line of fire,” he said flatly. She laughed a little.
“That’s like… all the time,” she pointed out. He stared at her and she- “Oh.”
“Oh,” he agreed. “But, I got used to it. Didn’t have a choice, really, but lucky for me in addition to be completely reckless, you’re also a damn good soldier. In fights against mercs and every other enemy we’ve ever come in contact with, the stress is secondary to knowing you’re the most badass thing on the field- besides me,” he added.
“Tell that to that marauder I headbutted,” she teased.
“Don’t get off topic,” he warned, but was smiling. That was better than the glare she’d been getting before, even after it faded back to sternness. “What I’m getting at is… when you went off on your own to the bottom of the ocean to hunt after a giant prehistoric monster that- we didn’t even know what it was?”
“Not a lot of choice,” she reminded him. Their options had been, roughly, stay on that boat until they starved to death and died, or find Leviathan and convince it to help.
“I know that, but it just- it’s always you that takes the risk,” he said.
“I can’t ask anyone else,” she protested.
“You could. Any of us could take on a few more dangerous tasks to try and keep the most important diplomat in the galaxy safe.”
“Gare I really don’t think this is about me being a war asset,” she said skeptically.
“Not a war asset, the war asset- but you’re right. It isn’t. Shepard, when your comm cut out a thousand worst case scenarios flashed before my eyes at once. You could have been attacked by some underwater… thing. Your Atlas could have cracked from pressure- you could have burst from pressure…” He bounced his knee, working off leftover anxiety.
“So what do you want me to do?” she asked finally.
“I want you to… we didn’t have a lot of choice with the Leviathan. I understand that, but… maybe you could work on your self-preservation a little bit? Take the long route instead of the easy one that puts you in more danger?” he asked. She looked at him- he was clearly tense, but not particularly waiting for her answer.
“Garrus, there’s gunna be a lot of stuff like Leviathan- things I have no control over, that I have do ASAP or they don’t get done,” she told him softly. He exhaled.
“I know, but there’s going to be some cosmically insignificant things too- things that it won’t kill you to be cautious about,” he tried. She leaned against his side, then sighed evenly.
“Okay. Just shout when you see one and we’ll see what I can do,” she promised. She didn’t want to be a source of stress for him, and even she could identify the pseudo-self-destructive habits she’d picked up since the Reapers had landed. It wouldn’t hurt to indulge him a little bit.
. . . . .
“Commander, we can cut through the facility and find the ringleader in half the time,” James said urgently, shuffling meaningfully to the entrance of the warehouse. Faust moved to follow him- of course she did. What were a few mercs when held up against an extra half hour of transport time?
“Or-” Garrus interjected, “-we could take the long way around and not have to slaughter our way through a warehouse full of volatile material.” Faust cringed.
“They’re just mercs.”
“You promised, Shepard,” he said shortly.
“We fought through a warehouse to find Harkin when you wanted to!”
“Yeah, and it was a dumb decision. Please.”
She stood strong for a second then sighed. “Fine. Lieutenant, we’re going around,” she said shortly. James rolled his eyes and said something in Spanish that her translator didn’t catch, but didn’t openly protest the decision.
“Thank-you, Faust,” Garrus muttered, bumping his forehead to hers quickly as she passed.
“I’m driving,” she told him, headed towards the skycar.
“What?”
“Hop in- I’m driving.”
“I changed my mind- I want to fight through the explosive material.”
“Too late now, Vakarian.”
“Shepard.”
“Thirty minute drive- I think we can make it in fifteen, don’t you?”
“I think I’m car sick.”
“You aren’t even in it yet.”
“Pre-emptive car sickness.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I’ve been in a vehicle with you before, Shepard. I’m not being a baby, I’m exercising a sense of self-preservation.” She laughed and shoved him, but didn’t change their route. He had to be punished somehow for his (admittedly welcome) insubordination.