Free the Earth and Sky

Garrus stared out over the dense forest canopy that covered the horizon as far as his eyes could see. Above him unfamiliar stars spun in their endless dance while twin moons rose towards the zenith of the night sky. It was the middle of his sleep cycle, but he couldn't sleep. Not in their room where her scent was slowly starting to fade. One morning he would wake and it would be completely gone. He couldn't face the empty quarters that waited for him, so he had sneaked back down to the CIC to finish working on the comms. He saw other crew members working when they were supposed to be off shift, but said nothing to them.

He knew that the Normandy was lucky to have crash landed where they had, and not say on Alchera, with its too thin atmosphere and freezing temperatures. But it didn't feel like luck. None of their instruments were working correctly and without a satellite in orbit or a working comm, they had little chance of being found anytime in the next century. Garrus turned his back on the trees and returned to the CIC. He was currently working with EDI and Traynor to get communications up. If not planet wide comms, than at least ship comms. They needed to be able to talk to each other without running up and down the access stairs every ten minutes. This would be easier if the drive core was working.

Adams and Tali had been forced to power down the drive core in order to repair it, so they were running on minimal power. EDI was slowly coming back to herself after that last power surge that had knocked them out of transit though the relay. Something that which not supposed to be possible. This had then caused all the engineers and scientists on board to have collective fits of apoplexy trying to figure out just how it had happened. He had finally shaken his head over the group hysterics and left them to it. With Shepard gone, it had somehow fallen to him to keep the lot of them alive. Which was not an easy task given the personalities involved. Garrus thanked the spirits every morning that he did not have Jack or Grunt to deal with on top of everything else.

"Hey Garrus" And this was another surprise that he hadn't known was on board the ship. Kasumi dropped down out of the access hatch she had been working in. Why exactly she had jumped ship from the Orizaba and to the Normandy the thief had yet to say. And honestly he was just glad it was Kasumi and not Jack. "I finally tracked down that electrical short. We should be able to open the cargo bay hatch now."

"Thanks Kasumi. That's one bit of good news." He looked at her. He guessed she was good looking as far as humans went, but he had never been sure when it came to alien ideals of beauty. At the moment she was far from anyone's ideal. She had dark circle under her eyes and her black fringe, no humans called it hair, was pulled haphazardly into a knot, with strands sticking out at odd angles. She looked the way everyone felt. Tired and defeated. How had Shepard done it? How had she kept everyone's spirits up? He wished he knew. He wished she was here now. "Have Ash, James and Liara gotten back from scouting yet?"

"Not yet. From what James said before he left, it will take them a while just to get to the outskirts of the forest." She watched him as he delicately attached wires and soldered contact points. "Worried? I could go after them if you wanted." Kasumi gave him a ghost of her usual cheeky grin. "They would never even know I was there."

"You'll stay with the ship. A ship you weren't even supposed to be on if I recall." He spread his mandibles in his own version of a tired grin. "Why did you jump ship Kasumi? I thought you were happy working on the Crucible."

The thief looked away, not meeting his eyes. "Oh you know me. I never stay in one place for too long."

"Kasumi."

"Please leave it alone Garrus." Her eyes flicked to his, then away again. "I just couldn't stay." She reached over him and changed the position of three wires and a circuit, causing the console to light up for the first time since they crashed on this spirits forsaken planet. "Besides, if I had stayed on that ship for one more minute, Admiral Shepard would have had me married to one of her many nephews. I mean I knew that Shep was an only child, but she never mentioned she had cousins coming out her ears. And Shep's mother is just as ruthlessly polite as she is. She just kind of rolls over you and before you know it, you’re having tea and coffee with two fleet admirals, a turian primarch and a rachni queen." The thief chuckled "It was when the rachni workers decided to help," she made air quotes with her fingers, "by trying to serve the tea that I knew I had to make my escape."

Garrus was momentarily distracted by the mental image of a rachni worker carrying a human tea saucer with a full cup on its back down a long table to Victus, before firmly pushing the image away. Some things didn't bear thinking about. And giant bugs were one of them. Palaven had never evolved insect life, so large, intelligent bugs were just a bit much for him.

Kasumi pulled her hood up so that her eyes were only a glimmer in the dark of the CIC. "I had such nice chats with Admiral Shepard over tea too," she paused, “well as long as the rachni weren't serving. Hannah, the admiral asked me to call her that, Hannah had all sorts of questions for me about Shep and her crew." She waited until Garrus had taken a sip of his apa. "She was especially interested in a certain turian sniper." Her eyes gleamed with mischief. "'The one that my daughter's been spending time with,' were her exact words I think."

Garrus choked. "Her mother asked about me?" Was that good or bad? Spirits who could tell with humans. They had so many different cultures that it was difficult to sort them all out. He would have to ask. "Is that normal in human culture?"

"Depends on the culture."

"Oh spirits."

"Don't worry. She wasn't upset you're a turian." A wicked grin. "She was upset that Shep hadn't brought you to meet the family yet. And that her family hadn't met your family. She also mentioned grandchildren at one point, but then said she didn't care what kind of grandchild it was as long as she got one sooner or later."

"I did meet the female." Garrus protested weakly. "It was when we stopped at the Orizaba to drop off Allers and the rest of the civilians."

"Well the good news is if you wanted to know what Shep would look like old, you just have to look at her mom." Kasumi lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. "She can be even scarier than Dr. Chakwas."

"No one's scarier than Dr. Chakwas. Hey Garrus did you know ship comms are working again?" Joker's voice came from the speaker hidden above the console he was working on. The pilot had fared better than some in the crash. He at least had been strapped into his chair, unlike the majority of the ground team. Only Ashley, Liara and James had been cleared by Dr. Chakwas for scouting. Garrus was still in a cast from breaking his right spur during the crash. He wished he could have gone with them. Anything was better than being here, waiting for news that would never come. "Now we just need to get the drive core working again and we can work on getting home." There was a slight click as the channel closed.

Kasumi waved at him as she started towards the women's crew quarters. "I'll see you later Garrus; I need to make myself scarce before the terror of the Normandy comes out of her lair."

"Kasumi Gato where do you think you're going young woman?" It amazed Garrus how Dr. Chakwas was able to freeze every single member of the ground crew, including him, in place with just a few words and a look.

"Ah, I was just heading for my bunk Doc." The thief gave the doctor a bright smile while edging towards the door. Dr. Chakwas stood just outside of the med bay, her gimlet stare stopping the other woman in place.

"You are due for your evaluation in the morning. I won't clear you for the ground team until you see me."

"I'll stop by after I sleep for a bit Doc, I promise." With that Kasumi hit her cloaking device and vanished.

Chakwas sniffed after the departing thief. "See that you do." She turned towards the turian who was also trying, without much success, to sneak away. "And what are you still doing up Mr. Vakarian?"

Garrus sighed in defeat and turned back to the medic. "I couldn't sleep. The cabin was too quiet, so I came down to finish up on the comms."

"I can prescribe something you something to help you sleep." Her voice gentled. "You need to sleep Garrus. We all do. Don't think I don't know that most of the crew isn't sleeping." Chakwas gave a weary sigh. "Including myself. Come, join me." She waved him into her med bay.

Garrus obeyed. He still didn't want to face that empty cabin. He sat in the chair Chakwas gestured him to. Rubbing a hand over his fringe he watched as she pulled two glass bottles out from under her work station. "It's a bit late, or is it early, for drinking Doctor."

"Nonsense. This is strictly for medicinal purposes. You favor the Rocam Whiskey if I remember correctly." She poured about three fingers of the bright amber liquid into his glass, her own liquor of choice a pale blue color that was the sign of an excellent Serrice Ice Brandy.

The turian cradled the glass in his hands, warming the whiskey before drinking a small amount. Rocam Whiskey was not a drink you slammed back. And if he treated the liquor with anything but the greatest of respect, his father would materialize in front of him just to take him to task for the affront. "Do you keep a bottle of everyone's drink of choice under your counter Doctor?"

"Of course" Dr. Chakwas was sipping her own brandy with open pleasure. She smiled at him, her silver hair gleaming in the dim lights of the ship's night cycle. "While Kelly tried her best to counsel the ship, I was the one most of the ground crew came to with their problems. I'm older than Kelly, with a great deal more experience under my belt." She took another swallow of brandy. "And then there was the added bonus of not being part of Cerberus. I was someone they could talk to without the fear that everything would be reported back to the Illusive Man." This time her smile was sharp as a razor's blade. "Not that they didn't try to spy on my conversations."

He laughed the sound rough even to his own hearing. "So how many bugs did it take to convince them to stop trying?"

"I stopped finding them after thirty seven were destroyed. Though I still had Kasumi and Tali go over the lab at least once every few days. Legion helped as well once he joined us." Now her eyes turned soft. Very few ever saw the good doctor when her guard was down. Garrus was touched that she trusted him enough to do so. "I very much enjoyed Legion's company. His point of view was so very different from my own." She raised her glass high towards the stars above. "To Legion, may his soul find peace in the beyond."

Garrus raised his own glass. "To Mordin, I hope you can finally study those sea shells like you always wanted too." Both drank in remembrance of their dead.

They spent the rest of the night in the med bay, drinking and toasting friends lost in the war. But Garrus refused to let Shepard's name pass his lip plates. She wasn't dead. Not yet. He had buried her once already. But she had come back to him, to all of them, and he would not bury her again until he saw her body with his own eyes. No she wasn't dead. She was lost, but would find her way home once again. He just had to give her more time.