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Shepard’s grand declaration of turning this into a galactic affair in order to avoid a full-on war comes with an unfortunate and very personal side-effect: she can’t return to the Alliance or be affiliated with it in any way for the foreseeable future. They must maximize plausible deniability about Shepard’s loyalties and duties.
They’re en route to the Citadel for Shepard to lay all of this mess at the Council’s feet, and Garrus figures that that will go over as well as anyone predicts, but Shepard had gotten in touch with Admiral Anderson and then Admiral Hackett to explain herself on a personal level. No one knew exactly what she had said to either of them, aside from it being unofficial, but considering she had left her quarters in tears and immediately went to Kasumi’s room to take advantage of the bar, it hadn’t been a fun conversation.
Pretty much everyone piled into Kasumi’s quarters afterward, to drink and commiserate and comfort. The thought that they’re about to become mercenaries at best and wanted criminals at worst sits heavy within the crew. Garrus had thought he’d left regrets behind when he had ditched his C-Sec career, but at least he’d still been (mostly) on the right side of the law.
“Anderson h-hates me now,” Shepard hiccups, clutching an empty bottle of bourbon to her chest as she uses the bar top as a pillow. She doesn’t bother hiding her tears, but neither does it seem like full weeping anymore. She just appears to be… leaking from her eyes. Continually. None of the other humans are overly concerned about the leaking, so Garrus tries not to worry unduly about something in her tear ducts being broken.
“He doesn’t hate you,” Tali says, soothingly, rubbing circles on Shepard’s back. “Disappointed, maybe, but—”
“He’s disappointed in me!” Shepard cries in fresh dismay.
“He’d be disappointed in this show,” Miranda mutters. Thankfully, Shepard appears not to have heard her; Garrus glares over in her direction on her behalf.
“There’s a lot of pent-up emotions that need to be purged now, Shepard, so don’t be afraid to let it all out,” Kelly, on her other side, kindly tells her. “There’s nothing wrong with feeling sorrow or regretful with how things are turning out—”
“I’m not allowed to regret anything because we have a war to win! An impossible war!” Shepard says, voice quavering, and rubs her face into the bar top with a snotty sniffle.
Garrus has certainly seen her in better form.
With all of the others ringing her, however, he can’t easily approach, and besides, they’d already had their conversation. She needs reassurance from more than just him and Thane. Even if it was about something as personal as a rift between her and Anderson.
“She had been overjoyed to see him at his promotion party,” Thane says as he takes the seat beside Garrus on the couch. “It is heartbreaking to see that so quickly torn apart again. This won’t be a liability, will it?”
“I know we were just told to throw morals out the airlock, but come on,” Garrus retorts, rolling his eyes.
“The human Councilor Udina seems likely to attempt to use Admiral Anderson against Shepard, should it come to it,” Thane points out.
Garrus muses on that. Unhappily. “…Well, that’s unfortunately true. He’s a… What was the human animal? Ashley called him one once and it made Shepard and Kaidan laugh. A sneasel?”
“Weasel,” Jacob supplies from the other couch.
“Anderson knows about the Reapers, he knows I’m right, but he already hated me be-because of Cerberus, fucking Cerberus,” Shepard warbles, still leaking.
“Fucking Cerberus,” Tali and Jack repeat, toasting to it.
“Does this qualify as a ‘pity party’?” Thane asks with honest curiosity.
“That’s usually used a little more mean-spiritedly, but… maybe,” Garrus replies. “But like Kelly said, she needed this. Better now with some alcohol and aboard the Normandy than ripping batarians to pieces with her fists again.”
“Human fists aren’t able to rip,” Grunt sneers.
Garrus levels a flat look at him. “Are you saying Shepard couldn’t do something impossible like that if she had put her mind to it?”
Grunt turns that over in his mind, visibly pondering, and Garrus stifles a chuckle behind his fist.
“This is why krogan don’t like you,” Thane points out. But he’s smiling at Grunt’s expense, too. “There’s no possibility that Admiral Anderson would defect to join Shepard’s side, would he? Surely this would be a painful situation for him as well.”
“No, he’s a military man, through and through. And like Shepard’s saying, he knows about the Reapers. He’ll want to stay in the Alliance to get them prepped however he can. He and Hackett would believe us, and we need allies, even if it’s not a whole military force.” Two admirals is pretty damn nice, though. That ought to be quick response time once they get more concrete evidence. (Too bad they don’t have higher-ups on their side like that in every military.)
“What if the war comes and the fighting starts too much too fast and I never get to see him in person again,” Shepard cries wetly from the bar.
It’s hurting him to hear and see her like this, but it’s a purging, of a sort. Also, again: too many protective and emotional crew members crowding around Shepard right now to allow him access. Garrus wonders how many he could pick up and move without inciting violence. Unfortunately, probably not many, especially right now.
“Alright, move on, the lot of ya. Obviously, none of you know what’ll comfort Shepard in this kinda situation,” Zaeed announces and elbows both Jack and Legion out of the way to take the stool next to Shepard. Brave man.
“I don’t want to shoot things or punch things or go be violent with you, Zaeed,” Shepard miserably replies with another sniffle.
Zaeed sets a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder. “Shepard, if it’ll cheer you up, as a replacement I’ll let you call me daddy.”
Shepard snorts a laugh, surprised and outraged, and drops the empty bottle to the floor. Jack and Kasumi crack up, Tali cries “ewww” and tries to smack Zaeed, and Miranda sighs, deeply.
“I made her laugh, I win!” Zaeed declares. Shepard tries to stop her laughing but can’t, collapsing against the bar top, hugging her sides. If she’s crying again along with the helpless laughter, no one comments.
“You two gonna let him get away with that one?” Jacob asks, trying hard not to seem like he’s laughing at the break in atmosphere, too.
“Why not? She’s having issues with a father figure, and Zaeed would be more than old enough to replace that, even as a joke or platonic comfort,” Thane replies.
Garrus and Jacob stare at him. Garrus hopes he is somehow misunderstanding Thane’s own misunderstanding of this situation. He doesn’t think so. Very unfortunately.
“Not it,” Jacob says, quickly vacating the opposite couch.
“…Am I missing some specific cultural context?” Thane asks, frowning, addressing Garrus directly with his confusion.
Garrus has never wanted to be put into the situation of explaining with a human ‘daddy kink’ is to someone else, much less to Thane, and much less within hearing range of most of the Normandy crew. So Garrus just laughs along, helpless in the face of that kind of explanation, and also because he in no way ever wants to actually answer that question. Humans are weird enough, and if Thane doesn’t know about that extra weird fetish, then good for him. Garrus won’t ruin his innocence.
Thane tilts his head to the side, thoughtful. “Or is the joke that I should have been the one to offer? Not that I consider myself the greatest of fathers—”
Garrus shoves a hand across Thane’s mouth to stop him from speaking about this, because if he laughs any harder, he’ll swallow his own tongue. Thane stares at him over his bony fingers, mouth dutifully closed from spouting off any other hilarious cultural misunderstandings.
Garrus nudges his forehead against Thane’s temple in halfhearted apology. Thane remains unamused. “Later, okay? Just… stop talking about it. Forever. It’s not for you.”
“It could be, and I’m still not convinced it shouldn’t be, since you’re being frustratingly unhelpful in explaining this,” Thane replies. He sighs at Garrus, in that special kind of disappointed but not angry way that kind of only makes this specific situation funnier. Thane stands when the sigh doesn’t do the trick of guilting Garrus into explaining himself. “I’ll just go ask Shepard myself if that’s what she wants from me—”
Garrus throws both arms around Thane’s waist and hauls him back, muffling his laughter against the leather of his jacket. “Spirits, no, you might break her permanently if she laugh-cries any harder right now!”
Thane runs his fingers over Garrus’ fringe, once as a kind gesture, then again as a threat to release him. Garrus loosens his grip but still manages to tug him back down into sitting again. “You’ll have to explain this thing about fathers eventually, Garrus,” Thane warns with a voice like silk. Apparently, he’s holding Garrus personally responsible for this. Great. There’s a conversation he never wanted hanging over his head.
At least they’ll have a guaranteed hilariously distracting conversation to throw at Shepard next time she gets bogged down with dark thoughts. Silver linings.