abraxaslogs | former glories and all the stories

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former glories and all the stories

WHO: Garrus Vakarian & Shepard
WHAT: Search & Rescue Mission
WHERE: Libertas
WHEN: Sept / Oct
WARNINGS: Warzone discussion, will update as needed

One small saving grace to all this is at least Libertas doesn't burn like Palaven did. Like Cipritine did. There are, at least, no twisted, mangled machinations scurrying around trying to indoctrinate people. No menacing shapes overhead - no blaring Reaper horns.

But that's small comfort for everyone involved, he's sure, and the thoughts stay unsaid.

Garrus wishes, also privately, he could at least have his helmet. Have a filter for the ashen air he's currently breathing in. Frankly, he feels naked all over. Picking through the streets strewn with rubble and trying not to step on anything hazardous - he doubts his hide and the makeshift boots would hold up too well. It feels wrong to be pacing through a warzone with nothing more than heavier clothing, the ancient communication device, and...

"Remind me what the hell this thing is supposed to be."

A 'hound', they'd called it. It's furry. It's a quadruped, and it's been assigned to accompany them. He feels like he should know what exactly he's looking at here - like if someone stretched out Shepard's hamster - but in all his time on the extranet, all his time on the Citadel, this thing has never hit Garrus' radar. Pets weren't allowed on the Citadel, nothing this size anyway. He knows they need to focus, this is a mission, and not something to take lightly. He isn't, of course. But the broken, burned-out buildings hit home in a way he really doesn't like.

Naturally, when Garrus has discomforting feelings, he defaults to the snark. To the smart-ass commentary. It won't last. Not when they're making steady progress toward their assigned quadrant of this block. Even though the words want to bubble up when he looks at the nearest broken building.

This ... is going to be a long one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Go.

He goes. Off at the single word like Shepard fired off a starter's pistol. There's a part of him - there's always been a part of him - that marvels at her. That sees his commander, sees this little (a weird descriptor for Shepard, always) human turn into a supernova. It's breathtaking, really. Every single time. Sure, he's seen biotics throw their weight around before. You work with enough asari eventually someone's going to get into an altercation and throw someone through a window. Human biotics too. But none of them ever garnered the same sort of feeling he got seeing Shepard work. He'd stop and watch, if he could. If this were any situation other than a serious mission.

She's incredible.

Instead, he bolts. Garrus has to bend to really get into the structure, but he's dealt with much worse before. The hand keeps waving, and his own find the rubble they're entrenched in. It looks stable enough, if he can get the top off - it's some kind of table, heavy, old, carved intricately and made of real wood. It's saved the occupants, but also trapped them, unable to get leverage from underneath.

Garrus' talons work under the lip of the table, making enough of a gap to wedge his actual hands under it. Then he shoves upward, gets his shoulder and then the edge of his cowl into the space, making himself into a living support.

"Can you move?" He hears a faint affirmation, and gestures with a hand. "Go!"

"I can't carry both - "

Dammit. Glancing around - once to check Shepard's status, the other to duck his head under the table shield. Human woman, bruised, dirty, holding a child. And an older child, maybe a teen, their face tear-streaked, their leg twisted and limp. Perfect. He exhales, and gestures again. "Go. I'll be right behind you with them!"

The woman scrambles, apparently trusting this weird looking savior to grab her other kid. Hell maybe she doesn't even know them, they were just trapped together. Garrus reaches down, reaches in, still bracing the table on his cowl, the heavy bone supporting enough to let him duck. "I'm going to pull you - and it's going to hurt. But either that or this comes down on your head."

... Garrus. May not be the best for talking to frightened teenagers. But still, the kid grasps his hand, and he drags them the rest of the way, while they stifle a few cries.

"We're coming, Shepard!"

Focused on her own task, she listens more by way of periphery than attention. But she does look up to gauge progress and, as it so often happens, catches Garrus' eye at the exact moment of his own check. She is tiring, and she saw him recognize it; lifting a thousand pounds of angry Collector was nothing, but this was well beyond her usual operational limits. He was moving as fast as he could, regardless, so Shepard did the only thing she could: she put her head down and held the line.

We're coming, Shepard!

"Roger... That," Shepard grit out, sweat dripping into her eyes, stinging with painful irrelevance. Garrus was dragging someone nearly-grown, gangly and limp, pulling them backward by the armpits in the proscribed manner. She knew he was doing it as fast as possible, and it still seemed to take a couple of eternities.

But at least the woman was free, clutching her wailing kid in her arms and reaching out with her one free hand, screaming hysterically for the presence of the other on. No help there, of course. Fine. As a human, she might never match up in terms of sheer power, but the thing was that you never had those Asari Commandos around when you really needed them. She would simply have to do.

Edited 2022-09-27 17:22 (UTC)

It's the correct way to do a rescue, sure. But it's definitely not fast. Not enough. Shepard is incredible, indomitable, but she's human. Humans have limits. That brief little glance of theirs is enough to prove it. So he double-times it. He hoists the kid up, to flat-out carry them out of the rubble. Less chance of the kid catching an injured leg on something, too.

Once that's in hand - har har - Garrus just books it. A flat-out sprint the last couple yards to the edge of the rubble.

"Clear!" he shouts, hooking a free arm around the woman too. She's too close to the rubble. When Shepard drops the lift, there's going to be fallout. Not flying debris, no, but dust, at least, and it might very well jar a few things loose. Shepard can handle it. But a civilian?

He gets the woman clear, sets the kid near her - ready to run back for his Commander if need be. "We're good, Shepard!"

Gentleness is not in Shepard's typical lexicon; she does the other thing. But she does try for gentleness, in letting go of the ruined house. At first, for at least a half-second, it even seems to have worked. And then there's an almighty crack as a foundation already more than half cracked goes all the way, and in the cellarspace the furniture goes under without so much as a patch on the noise of the rest. No hesitation, not a moment's respite, it all simply crumpled in on itself like a fallen cake. Dust blew out on the exhale of air, and Shepard shielded her eyes and did her best not to breathe any of it.

It wasn't as if they'd invented asbestos yet, but surely there were better things for her lungs, even still.

"St—" She has to stop and cough, turning half-blinded to move back towards the street itself, in the direction she thought Garrus had gone. A clean breath of air, and Shepard barked an order, "Status!"

The dog barked twice as he recognized her, deep and sharp, very like a threat for all his wagging tail and bouncing glee. The dust was settling; one down.

"Human teenager, broken leg. Adult and small child, I don't think they're hurt."

Automatic responses are beneficial in situations like this. She asks, he replies. Pure and simple. He doesn't have to think about what he's saying, he just reports. Which is kind of a good thing, since most of his brain is busy trying to pick her out of the cloud of dust.

Shepard wouldn't be calling out for a status if anything had happened, if any bit of debris flew out and clocked her. But it's a concern, regardless. Not as much as how much that lift might have exerted her biotics. He's seen her charge, throw barriers and shockwaves, but not haul a hunk of a building into the air. He hears the dog, too, and waves ineffectively at the cloud. "You all right?"

She's lucky not to have been hit by anything, and knows it; there's a reason every military in the damn galaxy short of the Krogan mandates helmets while at work. Except, apparently, this one— damned medieval horseshit that it was.

Not for the first time, Shepard quietly resolves to get some damned reforms put in place, just as soon as she can get these people to give her a proper command.

"I'm fine," She says, as the clouds die the slow death, and if she emerges from them with her hair the color of clay, well... it'll wash out. Still, when she wipes at her mouth, a stripe of wet red comes away under her nose, and she looks at it with annoyance, "Grab me the uh... The juice, would you?"

She'd almost said glucose ration, but had had a moment of annoyed disjuncture when picturing the waterskin full of what had been sold to her as the beginnings of wine. Really it was just boiled fruit juice, concentrated and sickly-sweet; once it was fermented, maybe it'd be alright booze, but for her purposes the stuff was invaluable. It took a lot of calories to operate as a field biotic, and she was no exception.

"Here, let me see," Shepard refocused, crouching down in front of the whimpering, barely-conscious kid; tired could wait, headache could wait, biotic metabolism... all of it could wait. The job wasn't done. But when she saw the damage, she grimaced, "That looks like it hurts like hell. Good news is, you're gonna live. We'll see what we can do. You using that scarf for anything?"

The mother shook her head, still wide-eyed and shocked by the events of the day, but gave over the length of fabric without protest when Shepard held her hand out for it.

Lifting her head, she called out to Garrus, "Compound fracture! We need to brace it, and move."

Edited 2022-09-29 17:54 (UTC)

"Right."

He'd set their supplies down before even checking out the hole in question. Along with the old radio set. Only takes a moment or two before he fishes out the ... bag... of juice. Why is it in a bag. Who does that. Just put it in a proper metal or plastic container like normal people.

Yes, he's dimly aware that plastic isn't really a thing here, but still!

Garrus pauses to grab something else as he makes his way back. It's a length of wood, about the size of his own arm, and about as thick around as two of his fingers. The juice he sets next to Shepard without further comment, then grasps the branch, or wood or whatever it is, on either side. One swift motion and it's broken in two over his knee.

"Here, brace. We have anything to tie it with?" If not, he'll shred the sleeves of his own shirt. No big loss there, maybe he'll look more fashionable that way.

"Here," She tosses the woman's scarf at him, then takes a deep swallow from the skin... alright, maybe another— no, enough. Focus, "How's the bleeding look?"

Compound fractures were always a mess; if the bloodloss didn't take you out, the infection might. Magic healing or not, it wasn't going to save the kid's leg if the damn thing went septic. But Shepard was only equipped to describe the outcomes, not to prevent them; her training had been about the business of causing such injuries, rather than the opposite.

All the more reason for haste. Add to that, the kid seemed to have just noticed that their savior wasn't human, and was not enjoying having that added to the day's horrors.

"Hey, hey look at me. Right here. You got a name?" The boy looked confused for a moment, eyes darting between Shepard's face and Garrus'. He took a breath, when Shepard did, and answered shakily.

"I—I'm Yusef."

"Okay, Yusef. I'm Shepard, this is Garrus. There's been an explosion, but we're here to help you. Now, you're gonna breathe," She inhaled, to continue, but the boy inhaled with her, and she nodded. His smile seemed almost involuntary, mirroring hers, and Shepard gave him a nod for it, "Good. This is gonna hurt, but you are gonna handle it. Then we're gonna pull you out by the street, where you'll be more visible for the medical team, you got that?"

"You will not stay with us?" This was the mother now, full of her own uncertainty. She had more of her wits about her; everyone had heard of the summoned, of course.

Shepard glanced back at Garrus, as if in confirmation... But the answer was obvious.

"No."

Human blood is always alarming. It's red in such a vivid shade, half the time it doesn't look real. Even when you know it is, from experience. When you've seen enough of it to know better, it surprises him sometimes. But there isn't a lot, thankfully. For such a small person, it's probably for the better that the bleeding isn't dramatic.

"Not bad. Wrapping it now." They can't set it out here. And there's no convenient cold packs laying around to take the swelling down, or reduce the bleeding that way. All they can do is put pressure on it. Which is going to be all kinds of horrible for the kid who's already in pain. Shredding the scarf into smaller bits - to act as absorbent pads while he wraps the rest - is easy with his talons like this. Damn, though he needs to clip them.

"Brace yourself," he tells the kid. And then... then it's quick, it's methodical, and Garrus tries to picture something ridiculous like Tali yelling about spiders to stop himself thinking about how the kid cries out every time he jostles the limb. Thankfully, when you have big hands in proportion to someone's leg, you can get the job done quick. "Okay! We're good!"

He almost feels, rather than sees Shepard's glance, and shakes his head with her answer.

"Too many people in your situation," he answers simply. Though the echoes in his voice are wavering. Betraying how much he doesn't like that idea. "Someone has to dig them out. And not everyone lifts buildings with their mind like the Commander."

Edited 2022-10-02 06:09 (UTC)

The woman, pale and tense, swallows hard and nods; her hands are shaking, but to her credit she isn't letting it control her. Probably that part will come later. But for now, Shepard takes another swig, caps off the wineskin, and heaves herself to her feet.

"Speaking of which, we need to move. Faster we get back to work, the better," She looks around— right, there's the dog, huge and dark-furred and just as dust-coated as the rest of them, "Here, boy!"

He's a good and obedient hound; he comes to heel without hesitation, and Shepard puts her hand in the fur on his head with real pleasure. So damned satisfying.

"Garrus, you carry the kid, I'll help her," She offers an arm to the woman, who takes it with obvious gratitude, burdened as she is by the clinging limpet of her other child, "C'mon, they should be here soon. We'll get you settled."

It's the work of a few minutes to place the shaken family on a piece of their own garden wall, near the cleared part of the street. If she squints, Shepard can already see the shapes of the medics peeling away from their latest appointment, and heading in their direction, stretcher alongside.

No need for their interference now; let the professionals deal with it. She says the word and the dog is off all over again.

Garrus is quick to follow the order, as always. Long limbs mean scooping up even the lanky teenager is fairly simple, even if he has to juggle a bit to get the kid settled in his grasp. There's a lot of bony plate there and he doesn't want to scrape up the kid anymore than he already is. He gets him lifted, gets him settled with the others. It's all routine. All automatic.

So is waving the medical team down, standing by until they descend. Garrus doesn't say much of anything, body language tight and clamped down. Gathering himself up, and then moving on, following the dog.

Automatic. Drilled into him since basic. Don't think, just act. Fall into line, don't let the smoke in the air get to you, don't think about the last bombing. The last fire rising into the sky. Don't think about Menae, about the globe splotched with smoldering red. This isn't the same. This isn't like Palaven. This isn't the Reapers.

Follow the dog. Follow Shepard. Make their way to the next spot. The next time the dog barks, darts ahead. And leads them to...

Frankly, Garrus isn't sure what he's looking at here. A much smaller dwelling, maybe. It looks totally collapsed in on itself. No way to see the actual structure, much less a way to get inside. He's got no idea if it's even possible for them to get in there. He looks at the animal, which has repeated its same behavior at the family's house.

"I think it's broken, Shepard."

Shepard rolls her eyes, "It's a dog, not a scanning algorithm."

She rolls her shoulder and cracks her neck, surveying the wreck thoughtfully. It looks like it wasn't much before the blast; wood walls from the doortops to the roof, stone foundation like much of the city... It wasn't even that big, really. Not much to speak of, next to the place they'd just cleared out. She cracks her neck in the other direction, and some of the tension drains with a sharp pop as the joint unbinds itself. Ah, much better.

The dog barked again, and Shepard belatedly remembered what she'd been told; she fished a strip of jerky out of the pouch at her hip and tossed it to him. Good boy.

"There's no point in lifting it if we don't know what's underneath," Shepard decided; it was stating the obvious, but someone had to be in charge here, and between the two of them it was always going to be her, "Let's get to digging until we can get a better view. Try not to step on anything unstable until then, got it?"

She sees him, and the tension in him. This isn't just Garrus at work, something about all this is really messing with him... but it isn't the time. Later, they could hash it out and have feelings. Right now, there was someone underneath all these rooftiles and brickwork, probably suffocating to death. But, she didn't have to tell him about that; after all, nobody understood Shepard's priorities better than he did. Get the job done.

Everything else could wait.

"It should come with one," he grumbles. But it's not a real complaint in the slightest. It's something small, stupid, and simple. Easier to complain and vent some of the other feelings in the little statement.

His head snaps around at the crackling, popping noise from Shepard. One more human thing he is never going to get used to. How they can just crack something and carry on. If they were turian, he'd wonder if they broke a plate. In all honesty, though, there's something weirdly assuring about Shepard doing something so mundane - just like his stupid complaint.

He'll take what he can get.

"Think it'll hold both of us?" He's already walking toward the pile, eying it. Trying to figure out where the best place would be to toss debris, somewhere it won't cause more damage. Off to the left looks like an empty lot. Probably there. "I'll climb up and start picking off the top."

"Watch the balance," Shepard reminds him, surveying her own entry-point with haf an eye on Garrus and a glance or two for the dog. Alright, here looks likely...

It's a slog. There's no two-ways about it; digging is hard enough when it's just sand or soil, and even then you have tools. This is bend and pull, uncertain weight, oddly shaped pieces of house-shrapnel binding and shifting. Twice, Shepard looks up to see Garrus putting his foot down somewhere that she's sure is going to lead to a broken ankle... but his leg just twists to accommodate the angle, seemingly without complaint. Damn. Turian leg muscles; she's well acquainted with them from other perspectives, but it's a new appreciation for form and function that—

—What was that sound?

"Hold up!" She waits, terse, listening. Relative silence descends, behind the background noise of the ongoing rescue efforts. It sounds like someone crying. Or rather, someone wailing. Like a child... or a baby, "You hear that?"

"Got it. Don't worry, Shepard, balancing I can do."

Long legs and different builds make clambering through the mess a little easier than others might have it. It would be nice to have a krogan around for this, though. Or more biotics. Either to dig with their brains or to all but bulldoze through the rubble. Then again, that might end poorly for anyone trapped.

Ah well, it's a decent enough daydream. Wrex and Grunt plowing into broken buildings, throw Liara in to Lift a few things. Hell, it's a daydream, throw in Jack and Samara too.

He's pretty sure he's cracked a talon or two, combing through the pieces of former household. But it doesn't matter, they'll grow out again. If they don't get to survivors in time--

His head jerks up at Shepard's words, the rest of him freezing in place. For a second, he's sure she's going to say the rubble is falling in on itself. Instead, there's noise? High and thin. Garrus cocks his head, trying to listen in better, to zero in on the sound, but - no. He can just hear it, not pinpoint it.

"Yeah. Yeah, I got it. Where's it coming from?"

"I'm not sure. Hold on," She turns her head and calls, "Here, boy. Come."

The dog, huge and black and eager as a puppy comes whisking over the fallen stone as lightly as if it were nothing more than a bright summer day. Shepard, operating more on a hope than on any notion of the dog's actual training, bends down and taps at the splintered beam under her feet.

"Here. Right here," The hound looks at her a moment, cocking his head first one way, and then the other, and finally puts its nose down where she's pointing, "You hear it? Smell something?"

The wagging tail slows to a stop, and the dog's ears seem to prick up. Shepard really doesn't know what that means, but she thinks maybe he's getting it. At the very least he looks more serious, now; on the job, again.

"Seek," She says, because she knows that command, and the hound obediently puts nose to the rubble. The soft wail comes again, a little fainter, but this time Shepard can actually see the dog recognize it. It moves off, picking through the mess, brushing close past Garrus. Then it stops and paws at the least-collapsed part of the house; a corner that is still partially intact, despite being completely piled-on with the crushed remnants of the better half of the roof.

The dog looks back at them and whines, then offers an uncertain, half-hearted bay of recognition. This? This was what you wanted?

"Good boy," Shepard says, for lack of a better option, then nods to Garrus: proceed, "Can you make out an angle to get under that? I'm gonna come around the back, look for better access."

You know, for all it looks vaguely varren-like, it's far more useful than one of those things. It hasn't tried to eat anyone, for starters. Always a bonus.

"I can try," he says, and starts to pick his way over. Carefully. He doesn't want to fall through the rubble, or break a pocket of air. He can see the corner in question, and it looks like there's a gap in the mess.

Another glance around. A bit of warped metal pokes out of the ground nearby. It's not perfect, but given the other options available, it's probably the best bet to brace the piece of roof up again. Still moving gingerly, Garrus steps over to it, pulls it free - pausing with every tug to ensure he doesn't cause a collapse. Eventually, it pops free, and he's able to slowly slide the end into the gap.

"Pushing it up," he tells Shepard, before he starts prying. It's another slow process, easing the top layer free and watching, carefully, to ensure nothing else falls. "I see a pocket!"

Shepard, stuck at a lower elevation and without an easy view, tests the strength of the wall and gives it up for a bad idea. She's still backtracking uselessly when he calls out the situation; she's still not excited about picking her way along the route he'd taken, or at least not excited about spraining something, but hell. What else is there? He can't hold and crawl.

"Looks unstable," She says, when she's close enough for a view. You wouldn't think ten meters could be such a distance, but here they were, "But it looks good for a target location."

It's a small gap; if it'll hold together, she can lift again, and try to enlarge the passage as well as hold up the ceiling. But if it's too unstable, and the shattered corner that's currently blocking their access fragments, she won't be able to keep hold of so many disparate pieces. For all her power and expertise, she was still just a Vanguard, after all, and a human one at that.

In which case, the alternative was obvious: she was a lot smaller than him, and she could bring her own light. But he was closer to the problem, and so...

"Reccomendation? You've got eyes-on."

The way he'd come still looks stable, if he casts a glance over his shoulder. It's not a comfortable hike. But none of this has been. He'd reach back and offer her a hand up if he thought it'd be enough to bridge the gap between them. Just to offer her something stable to grip. He does have the reach...

"If you can take the load, I can reach in. Can you do that light thing and hold the brace?"

Shepard's smaller, sure. But his reach is better. It'd be smarter, from what he's seeing, to reach a limb into the mess, rather than a whole person. If something falls, then it's a matter of a broken arm, not a broken skull. He thinks he can see something moving. Reaching upward.

"Space is big enough for my arm, but, I think if I lift it up more it's going to start falling."

"Depends on the weight," She considers it from the closer angle, finally managing to pick her way to his side. Crouching down... it's small, in there, that's for damn sure, "I could try and just toss it. It's the fragmentation that's the real problem..."

In combat, turning a thrown crate into a thousand ragged-edged splinters was a bonus, if anything. But here, it could turn out to be a deadly error.

"...Dammit, Liara was always better at this shit," She mutters, and then stands to consider potential landing zones. The house itself was ruined, but it might've had a cellar, in which case suddenly flipping more weight onto it would drop them all into a world of hurt. The street? That needed to remain clear, for the rescue teams, not to manage the potential for collateral damage if the impact produced shrapnel.

The alleyway? It was handy enough, honestly it was closer than anything else except the house itself, but was it wide enough? Would tossing the rubble there just cause them more trouble? Maybe she should just lift it, but that had its own concerns: she only had so much stamina, after all. There was no point in pride, where it served her ego and no practical purpose.

"Fuck it. If there's someone injured down there, I need you to get them out from under any falling debris while I get the top off this thing," Shepard stepped back, looking for a more stable place to set her stance, and where she could see both the target, and its destination, "Call the mark, it's on you."

"Throw it to the alleyway?" he suggests, as if reading her thoughts. But, really, it's the best option if they go that route. Keeps the road clear, keeps the pieces from falling inward. It's the best strategy they have right now. One of them could shoulder their way through the pieces once the survivors were clear.

It's on you

Set himself. Keep his hands on the brace. Okay, as soon as they're both ready, he'll call it out. He's got this. Some part of him is dimly surprised he doesn't balk at being put in charge here. But things have changed. He's not fresh off his failure on Omega anymore. Shepard trusts him. That's more of a balm than he really knows how to process.

Soon as he calls, he has to move, shove himself into the gap as soon as possible. His hide isn't invulnerable by any means, but he has a better chance of coming away from falling wooden debris with a few scrapes rather than severe injuries. It's the best call to make.

"Ready..." The briefest of pauses, his word trailing off - that's not the command, it's to follow: "Go!"

It is the duty of every commanding officer to spend her men's lives well, and not to waste them. Shepard is very aware of that. She's also aware of how irreplaceable someone like Garrus truly is; if she trusts him, it's to take care of himself as much as to get the job done.

And he, of all people, knows best how she feels about the mission.

Go!

She goes, and the entire slab of wood, stone, and mortar rises into the air, a tumbling, dust-shedding constellation of loose bits. Almost immediately, Shepard can feel that it's too much, too fragmented— it's going to drop. With a colossal effort, she wrenches both arms to one side, and the whole load wrenches with her, scattering in a tumbling, crackling heap into the alleyway.

She goes to one knee, vision swimming with black spots, but forces herself back up with a sniff. Down in the hole, now exposed to sunlight, sits a pair of children. The older cradling the younger, barely more than an infant, stares up at Garrus with a frightened, tear-streaked face. Beside them, well and truly pinned beneath the portion of the house that had collapsed fully, is a man— most likely their father. His face is bloodless, pale and pretty, and his hair is long and dark, and unless humans on this planet have found a new way to achieve a two-dimensional profile, he is very, very dead.

Garrus absolutely does not hesitate. He's in motion as soon as he says that word. He knows he needs to watch his step, to keep from becoming another rescue in the rubble, but time is absolutely of the essence. His steps are careful, fast. And he's there in a few long strides.

Something is groaning, and there's bits and pieces raining. He curses, colorfully, but, thankfully, in a his own familiar language. No human ears scalded here. Which turns out to be smart, in a weird sort of way, when the children are revealed.

The corpse barely gets a glance. Humans aren't made to squish like that. Not a priority, not the goal. "Search and rescue," he informs them, quickly. He doesn't want to linger, and risk that groaning noise going from removed debris to the crap under his feet. "You hurt?"

When the older kid shakes their head, that's all he needs. He scoops them both up in one go. Backing up and getting them out of the shallow grave as fast as he can, while trying not to sprain an ankle. "Clear, Shepard!"

The little one, the infant, is shrieking loud enough to wake the dead. So he adds: "They're not injured!"

Bending over the lip of the divot, she observes Garrus' businesslike handling of the situation. It probably won't work on such young kids, not human kids at least, but damn she does appreciate the way he simply gets on with it.

"Pass 'em up here," She calls down, and sniffs again, trying to stem the lingering nosebleed by sheer will, with uncertain success, "We need to get off this heap before something shifts."

The rest of the afternoon goes just like that; tragedy and hope hand in hand. The dog leads them somewhere, gets a snack, and stands by while they drag people in whole or part, or their bodies, out from under the damaged and collapsed structures of Libertas. It's an ugly scene, marred by soot and screaming ambiance, but as futile as the work can seem, it's still satisfying to her. They can't save everyone, can't even save all that many, but these children will get to live, that woman will be able to save her family, this father given a dignified burial.

By the time the sun it tilting towards the horizon, the army wants its dog back and Shepard... is tired. It's more biotic work than she's done in months, and strenuous even by those standards; she passes off the hound to the relevant authorities and drops onto a bit of masonry immediately after.

It's warm under her, against the cooling air, and Shepard sighs at the empty waterskin. What she wouldn't do for a nice, hot shower.

It's a lot more people than he'd been able to save, before. Every living survivor is one more mark on a mental tally sheet. Something to hold up, to see, when his thoughts turned back to the Palaven rubble. To bedsheets on Omega. The latter didn't rear its head as much these days, but when it did... it was always good to have proof to beat it back into memory where it belonged.

He's more concerned about Shepard, the longer they go. They've only got so much juice in the literal tank. Only so much a human biotic can push themselves before something goes wrong.

Thankfully, mercifully, their shift ends. Part of him wants to keep pushing, keep his head down and keep digging, just in case. Just in case there was one more. But the dog needs to go home, Shepard needs a break. He stays on his feet a while longer, scanning the rubble in an almost mechanical reflex.

At length, he pulls himself away, and drops to sit beside her. It's not juice, but he passes his own water supply over, shaking his head. His talons are cracked, scales on his hands pitted and flaking... but its as superficial as some scrapes and scratches.

"Turians don't lose as much hydration," he says by way of explanation. No sweat glands to speak of. "Take it."

She considers the offer with a weather eye. The right thing to do, the kinder thing, would be to hand it back, insist that it's his, and force him to drink his ration. She considers doing that. And then Shepard tilts her head back and takes a sip— and finds she can't stop swallowing, until the damned thing is abruptly empty.

"I'm fine," She tells him, on a hoarse and satisfied exhale. Fuck, she had needed that, "Gimme a couple minutes, we'll get back to it."

She's pretty bullheaded, but even Shepard knows what'll happen if she doesn't have a break just now; there are soft limits, and hard ones, and the way her legs feel this isn't the kind of limit where you can just embrace the pain and move through it. This is the other thing, with the blood sugar: the only thing to be gained there is a trip to the floor.

But they still can't stop. Most of the people who survived the initial attack will die here and now, in the first day. After that, it's just bodies and closure; she knows that, Garrus knows that, everybody knows that. Hell, he's only barely willing to sit the hell down, she can see how intimately he knows it.

They can sleep later, when there's only the dead.

When there's...

"Shit," Shepard says, quietly. She'd forgotten. She had forgotten that he was ahead of her in time, and if it wasn't by long then those few crucial months held the greatest casualty event of their lifetimes. It's only now, with her mind molasses-slow with fatigue, that she remembers it, "You holdin' up okay?"

"You sure?" He has to ask. Who else is going to watch Shepard's back, while they're here? He knows she pushes herself harder than anyone. Hell, he wants to keep pushing onward too. But he's just a regular old solider, not someone who could deadlift buildings with his brain.

They should have brought more food. More calories for her. More water for her. He knows damn well Shepard never would have accepted concessions like that, but he should have known better. He is itchy to keep up the work. And even more so to make sure someone important to him comes through this on her feet.

"I know I could use a breather. And I'm no biotic."

Maybe they can round up something to get her back in action sooner. Or... ah. The question of the hour. The one he's been driving off all day. He's quiet for a while, the gears churning in his head. His mandibles flex, fluttering with almost inaudible taps against his jawline.

"It's better than Palaven was," he admits. Which is possibly the best he can say about all this. He doesn't know these people. They aren't his people. He can't see the faces of his family in the survivors and wonder. "Lack of Reapers is always a bonus, too."

He doesn't say what else he's thinking. That this very well could be foreshadowing of her future.

Of Earth's future.

She has no reply for his transparent attempt to placate her pride. He knows her better than anyone, a little too well, sometimes, but... It's not like she doesn't need the break. And neither of them are going to be any good to anyone if they can't keep sharp.

"You know, when I was in prison. And then, on house arrest, I thought I'd go crazy. Staring at the walls, just wanting something to do. It wasn't like they didn't ask me, hell they must've interrogated me a hundred times at the start, always the same questions. I guess eventually they figured that whether or not they believed me, my answers weren't going to change," She fell silent for a bit, looking idly out over the much-shortened city, and the taller, undamaged quarters made thusly visible, out beyond the blast zones. Dust and smoke were in the air, reddening the late-afternoon sun.

Soon it would be dark enough that Shepard's ability to make light would be as valuable as her ability to lift rubble; just the idea made her tired all over again, not that it mattered.

"I know it's not exactly something to look forward to, but damn I just... After all this time, I just want to be able to look into all their smug faces and get one good I told you so," She laughed, and it was bitter, but only at the edges, "Just one. It's such a waste, and all of them spent all that time digging in their heels, when they could have been doing something. And I'm right. I was right, dammit. If we'd just gotten our damn act together..."

She heaves a sigh for the futility of it, then glances over at him, companionably resigned. You can't change the past, Garrus, but with work... maybe you can change the future.

"...You know how I like being proven wrong, though. C'mon, I gotta eat; you should to. Then we'll see how much a night-shift they'll let us have before we get some rack-time."

Edited 2022-10-19 02:59 (UTC)

"You do," he assures her, his tone more amused than anything. "I wasn't there for it, but believe me, I heard." About the I told you so. Because she was right. All of them were. Arriving back home, back on Palaven, it seemed like there was only one person who really listened, really believed the bizarre story Garrus himself was telling.

The irony of it being his father is almost funny, in a sad way. But even so, the token task force, the token acknowledgement from everyone else - he understood even a small portion of the massive frustration Shepard must have always felt. No one was hearing. Until the sky blackened and the horns sounded. Until it was too damn late. Then everyone was looking to him, to them, for some kind of answer he just didn't have.

I like being proven wrong

He leans slightly to one side, so their shoulders touch. The quiet falling into something understanding. At least, in all this, they end up finding each other again. Here, and in the seeming end of their world. No Shepard without Vakarian. No matter how insane it all gets, they seem to have a habit of connecting. It's a comfort, it's a brace.

"I wish I could tell you we were all just crazy," he adds, finally. His eyes are on the skyline - or what's left of it. "That we were wrong... That this isn't what Earth looks like where I'm from. But you know how I feel about lying."

Slowly, he starts to straighten up, rolling his shoulders.

"Can those dogs... see in the dark?"

Well, there's a change of subject. But maybe they've earned it.

"That I do," Shepard acknowledges, listening to him acknowledge the bitter truth and square up. She might've been having one of her least favorite vacations during that half-year, but she has to believe that, if no one else, Garrus had been doing his best to get the job done, in whatever capacity, "But hey, at least we've got each other."

Competence was hot, regardless of the source. In Garrus, who more than once she'd seen broken with impotent rage, and seen claw it back, it was more than merely attractive. It was... grounding. The difference between a night of ill-advised pre-battle passion and the kind of thing they had, that went on and on, until it felt like home. When he leans into her, she presses right back in mutual support.

"Those dogs got better night vision than either of us," she replies, letting go of Reaper Talk, at least for the time being. There would always be plenty of time for the end of the world later, "Why? Scared of the dark, Vakarian?"

"Yeah. You're stuck with me, Shepard, sad to say. But someone's got to make you look good."

There it is. The wry, dry sense of humor. Thrown in to try and lighten the bleaker moments. The harsher ones - where they have to confront or discuss things neither of them really want to think about. Someone has to make sure the weight of the world isn't smothering her. Much as he can, anyway, while they're stuck here, and not fighting a damn war for survival.

Not that she needs any help in the looking good department, if you asked him. Even dusty and exhausted. Lifting buildings with your brain? I guess that's a thing now.

He scoffs, his mandibles flaring down into a grimace. "Dark, no. Tripping over something, landing in a pile of rubble because I can't see my own feet? More so."

"We've got to get you into some of this magic stuff, get a light of you own," Shepard replies, grinning goodnaturedly at his suffering, "You can't make me do all the work."

It's a pointed jab; she knows he cares quite a lot about pulling his own weight, after all. She's no different. But as much as she loves to indulge personal preference, reality does impose the strict limits of that policy. Suck it up, Vakarian, you're going to wizard school.

But not right now. Right now is for creaking to her feet, and offering him a hand up. It's for breathing the smokey air, and squinting down the street... and setting off. For warm food and hard work, and eventually, a bit of sleep. But not right now.

"Maybe I like seeing you work," he retorts, except it doesn't... sound quite like he'd meant it to. He clears his throat. "I mean - right. A light. That's a good start."

Nailed it. Plus, his fluster definitely deflects from the notion of this magic crap. He knows damn well he'll have to figure it out eventually. He'll have to. If he wants to keep up, if he wants to be useful, carry out any kind of duty.

He takes her hand, though, hauling himself upright in time to follow her.

Always.

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