chapter 8

Garrus had once heard Ashley Williams state that human hell was supposed to be full of fire and molten sulphur.

He supposed if there was a turian version of hell around there somewhere, it would have to be Noveria.

He drew his mandibles tight to his face and looked around distastefully. Noveria was a representation of everything Garrus Vakarian despised, though it was hard to say what irritated him the most. Maybe it was the biting cold, maybe it was the way the Noveria Development Corporation turned a purposeful blind eye to all the borderline unethical experiments conducted in their labs, maybe it was the fact that places like Noveria were directly responsible for organizations like Cerberus running unchecked across the galaxy. . .

. . . or maybe it was because this was the place where Liara T'Soni's innocence came to die.

He glanced at the nervous young asari standing beside Commander Shepard, listening to her conversation with Anoleis' secretary regarding Matriarch Benezia's whereabouts.

Garrus had often wondered when it was that Liara had gone from being the naïve young researcher they all knew to one of the most ruthless information brokers in the galaxy. He had always assumed that fighting the Shadow Broker over Shepard's remains and losing her drell friend had hardened the young asari, taught her a lesson about the galaxy's cruelty just like Omega had taught him. He always thought it was the two years they'd all spent without Shepard and the pressures of waging a private war with the Broker that had turned Liara into a colder and much more reserved individual.

But looking back, Noveria was where it had truly begun. It was here that Liara was forced to watch as the mind of the woman she loved more than any other crumbled under the weight of Sovereign's indoctrination. Being forced to fight for your life against your own family, and then watching them fall apart being unable to even control their own consciousness; watching someone you loved begging for the mercy of death, incapable of bearing their imprisonment within their own head. . . . it was a testament to Liara T'Soni's inner strength that she had not broken down completely after this incident.

But she hadn't come out of it completely unscathed. Even though none of them had seen it back then, something within Liara had changed after Noveria. She smiled at lot less, she no longer chattered about Protheans at the drop of a hat and she became more intense, more focused on the battlefield. Garrus had put it down to grief and shock at that time, but now he knew better.

The truth was that a part of Liara T'Soni had died on Noveria alongside her mother. The naïve young archaeologist who saw the galaxy through rose-colored glasses was gone, and in her place was someone else, someone darker; someone who would eventually go on to became the Shadow Broker herself.

For Garrus and the rest of the gang, Ashley Williams' death on Virmire had been the real turning point. What had upto that point been a simple, professional assignment had became something personal. But for Liara T'Soni, hunting Saren and stopping the Reapers had always been personal.

In a way, Garrus understood. In the previous timeline, he had watched his mother slowly succumb to the horrors of Corpalis Syndrome. At the end of her life, she had barely been able to recognize her own children. Her death had almost been a blessing from the Spirits, especially since the Reapers had hit the galaxy barely three months later.

But at least Garrus had had months to come to terms with his mother's death. Liara had been forced to go through that hell and then put herself back together in the blink of an eye.

For the thousandth time, Garrus mentally chided himself. This, right here, was the reason they had lost the war in the first place! How could they have been so blind to everything going around them? They were supposed to be comrades, friends. . . but all they had ever done was bitch about their own problems to Shepard, instead of trying to find ways to help each other. Instead of letting her focus completely on the war with the Reapers, they had gotten her to play psychologist to all of them!

They were all equally guilty! Tali had always worried about the Migrant Fleet, even when she was light-years away from them; Wrex had been borderline obsessed with the genophage and had pretty much given up on his own people; Williams and Alenko were only concerned about their mission and their beloved Alliance; and he. . . he had been a fool. The greatest fool of them all!

He should have been there for his friends when they needed him the most, he should have done his best to get to know them all better when he'd had the chance, he should have recognized his own potential for leadership and worked with Shepard. Instead, he had been obsessed with justice, morality and the Spirits-damned right way to do things. Even after Shepard had died, instead of working to help prepare the galaxy for the Reapers, he had gone off to Omega. . . Omega, of all the Spirits-damned places in the galaxy, to play vigilante!

In a way, his father had been right about him: he had wasted his potential. And in the end they had all payed the price for it.

He snapped out of his internal rant as Shepard led them out of the Administrator's office. He watched as she took Tali and Wrex with herself to meet with Lorik Qui'in. As soon as they were in the elevator, Garrus excused himself from the others and walked away purposefully.

He had failed his friends once. He'd be damned if he did it again.

"This one offers greetings! You are a friend of the Spectre that visits Port Hanshan?"

Garrus gave a wary glance at Opold, the hanar shopkeeper. To be perfectly honest, he had no idea why he was doing this.

No harm in having a backup plan or two, I guess. . .

"Yeah, I am," he replied casually. "What sort of goods do you have, anyway?"

"This one would be happy to show you this one's humble wares."

Garrus pretended to browse the store terminal with a bored expression on his face. He knew from his C-Sec experiences that hanar were great at reading the body language of most species, despite their detached appearances.

"Hmmm, nothing that catches my fancy, I'm afraid. Don't you have any. . . special items I could look at?"

"This one is afraid this is all this one has." There was a hint of wariness in Opold's voice.

Garrus decided to twist the knife a little. "You sure of that? Hmm, that's funny. I could've sworn this was the place Inamorda mentioned. Maybe it was some other hanar he was talking about." He turned to leave.

"Wait!" cried Opold as Garrus reached the exit. "This one was unaware that you are a friend of Inamorda." It approached him slowly. "This one regrets that it does not have anything special at the moment. Would you be willing to return later?"

Gotcha. "Yeah, sure, no problem. I'm looking to do a lot of business anyways."

"One more thing. Sometime in the future I may require some. . . stuff that might not be strictly legal in Council space. Can I count on you to help me acquire them?"

"Of course." The hanar lit up with joy (literally, in this case) at the prospect of future business. "This one will send you its mailing address and a list of contacts for future deals." Garrus' omni-tool pinged. "As an apology, this one would like to offer the good customer a discount on its wares."

Never one to pass up on a discount, Garrus bought himself a weapon mod and strolled out of the store.

He braced himself. This was it! The whole reason he so desperately wanted to accompany Shepard to Noveria in the first place. . . .

"Commander, wait!"

Shepard paused, her hand hovering over the control panel before the tank containing the Rachni Queen.

"If you kill her, you consign an entire race to death. It's genocide, Shepard. You can't do this!"

"What?" Wrex bellowed. "Listen, turian! Millions of my ancestors died to put these things down. We can't let them come back!"

Garrus ignored him, his eyes locked with Shepard's. "The Queen's an innocent, Shepard! She never did anything to deserve a death like this. She's just a mother, cut-off forcefully from her children. You heard what the scientist at the hot labs said. What happened here isn't her fault!"

"He's right, Shepard," Liara spoke, still kneeling beside Benezia's body. Her body was still hoarse with grief, her eyes red from crying. "She's no different from any other mother trying to protect her children. It's not right to simply murder her like this!"

"Are you out of your mind?" Wrex was outraged. "The rachni nearly destroyed the galaxy the last time they were free!"

"So did your people, Wrex. Does that mean they deserve to die as well?" Garrus said bitingly.

Wrex looked like he was about to attack him when Shepard cut him off. "Enough! We are not starting that old argument, again." She rubbed her temples tiredly. "Look, I don't like this, either. But, Wrex is right. There's a good chance the rachni might try to start a war again."

"If we went around killing people simply because of what they might do, Commander, the galaxy would be a pretty empty place," Garrus stated.

"I don't know," Tali said slowly. "If my people had the chance to destroy the geth back when they were still under our control, I'm sure they would take it."

Spirits, Tali! Not now!

"It's not the same thing, Tali, and you know it! The geth are machines, she," he gestured to the queen, "is a living, sapient being. If we kill her, we'll be cold-blooded murderers. It isn't right!"

For what felt like an eternity, Shepard stared at him. He held her gaze, not even daring to breathe, silently begging her to make the right choice.

Please, Shepard!

Shepard turned back to the queen. "If I let you live, would you attack the other races again?"

"No!" exclaimed the queen, through her asari medium. "We would seek a hidden place to teach our children harmony. If they understand, perhaps we would return."

Shepard hesitated, her finger on the control panel. Then to Garrus' immense relief, she stepped back. "No, I can't do this. I'll let you go free."

"You. . .will give us the chance to compose anew?" The queen sounded almost surprised. "We will remember. We will sing of your forgiveness to our children."

"Great," Wrex grumbled. "Bugs are writing songs about you." He shook his head. "Mark my words, Shepard. You'll regret this."

Shepard ignored him, activating the console to release the containment pod. The queen gave one last glance at Shepard, and to Garrus' surprise, him, and crawled away to freedom.

"I hope we made the right decision." Tali said fervently.

So do I, Tali. So do I.

Truth be told, he had no idea why he'd thought about sparing the Rachni Queen. In the previous timeline, the entire team, with the exception of Liara (and maybe Alenko) had agreed that destroying the queen was the safest thing to do. In Garrus' own experience, dealing with rachni had never done them any good. He still remembered how much releasing the queen on Utukku had cost them in the previous timeline. Not only had Grunt and his entire team given their lives to help them escape, but the queen, who been indoctrinated all along (big surprise), had turned on them, resulting in heavy losses to the war effort.

Then why had he done it?

Maybe it was because he remembered how badly it had affected Shepard in the previous timeline, when she'd been forced to commit genocide in the name of the greater good; maybe it was because it felt wrong to take the life of an innocent mother fighting simply to keep her children safe; maybe it was the small smile of gratitude that Shepard shot him on their way out of the labs. . .

. . . or maybe it was simply because he believed that like him, there was someone else out there who deserved a second chance to make things right.