Virmire: Aftermath

“Shepard!” Liara called, running towards them as soon as Shepard, Ashley, Garrus, and Wrex entered the cargo hold on the Normandy. Shepard looked up, but it seemed to Garrus that she didn’t really want to talk.

“Everybody hold on!” Joker’s voice interrupted whatever Liara was going to say, as the Normandy was knocked by the shockwave of the nuke’s explosion. Garrus winced—Alenko had seemed to be a nice enough guy. For a human.

“Shepard,” Liara said again, softer. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that,” Shepard snapped, which seemed to catch Liara off guard. It certainly caught Garrus off guard. It didn’t seem like she did know that, but then again, he wasn’t that good at reading human body language. She seemed troubled about something though, all
the same.

“Oh, sorry. I thought—” Liara stammered.

“I know what you thought!” Shepard retorted, before taking a deep breath and continuing slowly and somewhat emotionlessly. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to discuss me right now. We’ll have a debrief in ten minutes in the conference room.”
Shepard, Garrus decided, is a very confusing human.
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Shepard and Garrus found themselves working on the Mako after the mission debriefing—Shepard on the interior, Garrus on the undercarriage, as usual. It seemed to Garrus that Shepard was not in a good mood. Which would be putting it mildly. There were a lot more curses and bangs coming from where she was working than usual.

“Shepard?” Garrus finally asked hesitantly.

“What?” Shepard all but growled.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Shepard replied after a pregnant silence.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Garrus wasn’t sure why he was offering his help—the commander didn’t seem to like him much—but there was something different about the commander. She wasn’t her usual silent self. And she had just left one of her squad to die.

“Did you know that you’re the first person to ask? Everyone else seems to assume they know what I feel and that I will talk to them about it. Not whether or not I want to.”  Shepard paused. “I don’t like the feeling of guilt,” she admitted.

“Not many people do,” Garrus said wryly. “Why do you feel guilty?” he added, more seriously. Shepard seemed to respond better to questions than she had to the others’ expressions of sympathy.

“Because I don’t feel guilty.”

Okay, now Garrus was really confused. “You feel guilty because you don’t feel guilty? I don’t think I will ever understand humans.” Shepard chuckled at that, which made Garrus flare his mandibles in the turian version of a smile. Shepard didn’t laugh very often.

“I’m not guilty for sending Kaidan to his death. But I know I should be, so I feel guilty that I’m not,” Shepard tried to explain. That…sort of made sense. But it made Garrus question Shepard’s grasp on emotion.

“So why don’t you feel guilty?”

“Because it was the logical decision. Williams is more valuable to me than Alenko was, and Alenko’s biotics could help the salarian’s team, which would help the whole mission. There’s no real point at feeling guilty, because it was the only real option.”

“But Kaidan was a higher ranking officer,” Garrus pointed out. “Wouldn’t that make him more valuable?”

“I’m a Spectre now. Making sure my team has the best chance to defeat Saren is more important than making sure the Alliance has enough officers. This is bigger than just humanity.”

“But you’re still part of the Alliance, right? Won’t they be upset with you?”

“I answer to a higher power than the Alliance,” Shepard argued.
Garrus conceded on that. “So it was a logical decision for you,” he verified. Shepard agreed. “Nothing to do with the lietenant’s…interest in you nor your distaste in him?” Shepard went silent—even the sounds of her working quieted. Garrus worried that he may have overstepped his bounds—or, that he had hit on the real reason Kaidan was dead and Ashley was alive. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Finally he heard her move, and had a moment of panic when she crawled underneath the Mako with him. He had a healthy level of respect for the commander, but sometimes she got a look in her eye that completely terrified him.

“Garrus,” she stated emotionlessly after her head was level with his. “You will not tell anyone or anything of what I am about to tell you.” Despite the fact that Shepard had ordered more than asked, Garrus nodded in agreement.

“Alenko was an annoyance and his attentions were unwanted. He wanted to throw off the balance of the team, and he couldn’t seem to take no for an answer. Ashley is more stable and I have more confidence in her ability to survive. I’m not sorry that he is off the mission. So no, I didn’t like him. Yes, that did factor in my decision. But it was not the only reason.”

Garrus was stunned. This was the famed human, the poster-child of the Alliance? This was the first human Spectre? She gave off a good front, he would readily admit, but she was a psychopath.

“Garrus?” she asked after he didn’t respond. He remained silent. He saw Shepard nod out of the corner of his eye before she started to maneuver herself out from under the Mako.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she went, an unknown emotion in her voice—one of the only times emotion entered her voice. Which confused Garrus even more. She sounded like she truly meant it.

He pondered what she had said to him, trying to reconcile the face she showed the galaxy with the one she had shown him. What began to scare him, though, was the realization that he understood what she had said. It made sense. And what was she apologizing for?
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“Attention, crew of the Normandy,” Shepard’s voice came over the intercom later. “I know that losing Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was a tough blow. But I promise you, once we are done with this mission, I will personally see to it that a memorial for him is placed on both Virmire and on Earth, and I will request for one on the Citadel. But, we will not let this setback defeat us. His sacrifice will not be forgotten, and we will honor that sacrifice by bringing Saren down, and the Reapers with him. Shepard out.” Some ragged cheering followed Shepard’s announcement, but Garrus didn’t join in.

What is she trying to prove? And more importantly, who was she trying to prove it to?