Re: Variations on a Theme, with Tank and Gunfire, 2/?
anonymous
June 26 2012, 15:31:47 UTC
The fourth time she rushes. Skips everything that doesn’t seem essential, that doesn’t lead directly toward her goals. She is tired of the mess she’s caught in and just wants to get it done.
It’s awful. Wrex dies on Virmire, while she’s stammering, fumbling for the words she used to persuade him before. The mission to the Collector base is a disaster. She loses so many. Worst of all, Garrus, saying, “Guess I won’t be there at the end, Shepard,” before the light goes out of his eyes. She crouches there a minute, stunned. This isn’t right. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Shepard, we have to go,” says someone-Miranda, she thinks-and she leans forward and kisses him on the brow. It’s already too cold. He’s supposed to be warm. He’s always so warm.
She survives the mission, barely, and rushes through everything else, too. She’s just going through the motions. All those people who need some damn artifact fetched can do without. She keeps looking for faces who are supposed to be there are aren’t. Sometimes there’s someone else in their place, someone she doesn’t really know, and sometimes no one’s there at all. Now and then, she walks into the battery out of habit, and finds it gleaming and quiet and empty. She stares around stupidly and walks out again before she does something she can’t afford, like burst into tears.
After that nightmare, it is a relief, a huge fucking relief, to wake up in the medbay for the fifth time. At least she’s got a chance to set things right again.
So the fifth time, and every time afterwards, she forces herself to slow down, be methodical. Does a few things differently. Changes up her weapons and her tactics and her ground team. To keep herself from getting bored on ground missions, she works on learning to drive the Mako properly. Unfortunately, nothing stops planet scanning from being boring. She gets to a point where she actually remembers which planets have the really good palladium deposits, and she can hardly believe that something that dull is taking up space in her brain.
Most of those times, she pursues Garrus again, even though she has to go so slowly that she wants to scream. A couple of times she tries to flirt with him on their first mission, and he just looks at her blankly. She’s not sure whether he’s that clueless or she’s that bad a flirt. She sighs and goes back to helping him fix the vehicle.
Her memories from the first time are still the sharpest. She knows there are some little things that are different every time: casual conversations, inconsequential interactions. She loves Garrus, every time. She hasn’t managed to fall out of love with him yet. But she misses... she misses the original. Her Garrus. Back when everything was new and fresh and unpredictable, and she didn’t know everything he was going to say before it came out of his mouth. She holds herself back, a little bit, because she knows soon they’ll be back to square one and singing this same song again.
It’s still better than not having him at all.
It takes her some practice, but she gets good at driving the Mako. (In the back of her mind, she can hear the original Garrus dryly teasing her for taking longer than average to learn.) She can jump over armature fire, crush geth rocket troopers under her wheels, and dodge thresher maw acid. She sails off cliffs and lands them as gently as a kiss. All of her teammates are impressed, even Wrex, who generally makes a point of not being impressed by anything. Garrus is always particularly admiring, and she has to admit it gives her a thrill to see that particular gleam in his eyes. She takes him on most of the Mako drops, just so she can hear him drawl compliments, and the dim light inside the tank hides her rising blush.
It’s awful. Wrex dies on Virmire, while she’s stammering, fumbling for the words she used to persuade him before. The mission to the Collector base is a disaster. She loses so many. Worst of all, Garrus, saying, “Guess I won’t be there at the end, Shepard,” before the light goes out of his eyes. She crouches there a minute, stunned. This isn’t right. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
“Shepard, we have to go,” says someone-Miranda, she thinks-and she leans forward and kisses him on the brow. It’s already too cold. He’s supposed to be warm. He’s always so warm.
She survives the mission, barely, and rushes through everything else, too. She’s just going through the motions. All those people who need some damn artifact fetched can do without. She keeps looking for faces who are supposed to be there are aren’t. Sometimes there’s someone else in their place, someone she doesn’t really know, and sometimes no one’s there at all. Now and then, she walks into the battery out of habit, and finds it gleaming and quiet and empty. She stares around stupidly and walks out again before she does something she can’t afford, like burst into tears.
After that nightmare, it is a relief, a huge fucking relief, to wake up in the medbay for the fifth time. At least she’s got a chance to set things right again.
So the fifth time, and every time afterwards, she forces herself to slow down, be methodical. Does a few things differently. Changes up her weapons and her tactics and her ground team. To keep herself from getting bored on ground missions, she works on learning to drive the Mako properly. Unfortunately, nothing stops planet scanning from being boring. She gets to a point where she actually remembers which planets have the really good palladium deposits, and she can hardly believe that something that dull is taking up space in her brain.
Most of those times, she pursues Garrus again, even though she has to go so slowly that she wants to scream. A couple of times she tries to flirt with him on their first mission, and he just looks at her blankly. She’s not sure whether he’s that clueless or she’s that bad a flirt. She sighs and goes back to helping him fix the vehicle.
Her memories from the first time are still the sharpest. She knows there are some little things that are different every time: casual conversations, inconsequential interactions. She loves Garrus, every time. She hasn’t managed to fall out of love with him yet. But she misses... she misses the original. Her Garrus. Back when everything was new and fresh and unpredictable, and she didn’t know everything he was going to say before it came out of his mouth. She holds herself back, a little bit, because she knows soon they’ll be back to square one and singing this same song again.
It’s still better than not having him at all.
It takes her some practice, but she gets good at driving the Mako. (In the back of her mind, she can hear the original Garrus dryly teasing her for taking longer than average to learn.) She can jump over armature fire, crush geth rocket troopers under her wheels, and dodge thresher maw acid. She sails off cliffs and lands them as gently as a kiss. All of her teammates are impressed, even Wrex, who generally makes a point of not being impressed by anything. Garrus is always particularly admiring, and she has to admit it gives her a thrill to see that particular gleam in his eyes. She takes him on most of the Mako drops, just so she can hear him drawl compliments, and the dim light inside the tank hides her rising blush.
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captcha: baptism hensibum *scratches head*
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I cannot wait to see where this goes :DDDD
*happy dance*
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