Closure WARNING ME 3 SPOILERS

    Shepard cast aside her pistol as she staggered toward the beam of light. She would no longer need it, where she was going. The pain in her side was excruciating as she dragged herself onward but she did not let it stop her, face fixed grimly on her goal. Beyond the Citadel, she could see explosions as the battle raged on around her.  Involuntarily, her mind drifted to pleasant memories, things that reminded her of why she was doing this, and a familiar turian face appeared in her mind, awkwardly asking her if they were crazy for considering trying to 'blow off some steam.' She smiled sadly at the memory.

    As her feet drew nearer the beam of light, her thoughts turned to a more recent moment with Garrus, the last chance they had to speak with one another.
   
    Garrus looked down at her seriously, concern warring with determination in his eyes. "Shepard, so I guess this is..."

    She gave a weak chuckle. "Just like old times?"

    Garrus gave an echoing attempt at laughter, then sighed. "Might be the last chance we get to say that."

    Shepard glanced up at him in surprise. "What, you think we're going to lose?"

    "No, I think we're about to kick the Reapers back into whatever black hole they crawled out of.  Then, we're going to retire somewhere warm and tropical, and live off the royalties from the vids."  Shepard had to smile at that. Even in the grimmest moments, Garrus always had a dry humorous comment to lighten the mood. "Maybe..." he added hesitantly, tilting his head slightly to gauge her reaction, "even find out what a turian/human baby looks like."

Shepard laughed and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm game, though I think adoption's a better idea. Biology may not cooperate."

"Hah... well, I suppose there will be a lot of little krogan around, soon," Garrus replied, with the closest thing to a smile that his turian features could manage.

Shepard sighed, her light mood gone again, just as quickly. "We just have to beat the Reapers, first..."

Garrus looked at her for a moment and then turned his head to look out over the rubble of what had once been London. "James told me there's an old saying, here on Earth. 'May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.'" He turned and looked back at Shepard. "Not sure if turian heaven is the same as yours, but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there, meet me at the bar. I'm buying."

Shepard stared up at him with a lump in her throat. "We're a team, Garrus," she said, not ashamed of the slight tremor in her voice. "There's no Shepard without Vakarian, so you better remember to duck."

Garrus stepped back and held up one hand as if in mild protest. "Sorry, turians don't know how... but I'll improvise." He tilted his head to look at her again, so many unspoken words passing between them as they stood in the bombed out shell of a building with other soldiers nearby. Finally, he stepped toward her and took her arm to pull her close. "And Shepard... forgive the insubordination, but your boyfriend has an order for you." Leaning his head close to hers, he said quietly, "Come back alive. It'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you."

Shepard leaned in close and kissed the turian, her hands clinging to him as his arms slipped around her waist and pulled her against his body. Reluctantly breaking the kiss, she looked up at him sadly. "Goodbye, Garrus. And if I'm up there in that bar, and you're not... I'll be looking down," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "You'll never be alone."

Tears stung her eyes as she stumbled on, but her determination never faltered. She knew what had to be done. Breaking into a ragged trot, she thought of Garrus again.

"Goodbye, Garrus. I'm sorry I couldn't obey your orders," she whispered softly to herself. Taking a running leap, she flung herself into the light's embrace, wind rushing in her ears as visions of her loved ones flashed before her eyes, ending with an image of one adorably awkward turian with no romantic skills to speak of.

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Tali'Zorah vas Normandy carefully picked her way over the rubble, tilting her masked face up to look at the sky, still amazed at how quickly the smoke had cleared once the Reapers had ceased fighting. No one could believe it, even though several weeks had now gone by with no further sign of hostilities. Just when everything had seemed lost, the Crucible had ignited and every one of the Reapers had ceased to attack. Somehow, despite everything, Shepard had done it.

Tali felt her heart clench in pain at the thought of her friend and she lifted her head again to look in the direction of where the Citadel had disappeared in a fiery explosion. Shattered remnants of the wreck still hung visible, even in daylight, but no clean up efforts had begun. Everyone was still too shell-shocked at simply being alive, and most were still hugging in the streets. With the destruction of the mass relays and many of the ships, it would be a long time repairing the mess and returning people to their home planets, but for now, it was enough to simply be alive for another day.

The quarian sighed softly, the sound echoed by the gentle whirring of tiny servos that kept her suit ventilated. Usually the familiar sound was comforting to her, it meant there was no damage to the enviro-suit that kept her safe and prevented her from taking ill in an environment that her weakened immune system could no longer withstand, but today the sound brought her no peace. The loss of Shepard had left her heart constricted with grief, though her sense of pride in what her friend had accomplished was a slight balm over the raw wound. Stopping the Reapers from wiping out all existence was no small feat to be remembered by.

However, today, her thoughts were not for herself, but for another dear friend. After the explosion of the Citadel, Garrus had become silent and withdrawn. He helped where he was needed, and threw himself into the work of cleaning and rebuilding shelters with a frenzy that revealed his obvious attempt at trying to avoid thinking too much, but when the work was over, he always disappeared again.

Tali'Zorah had asked some of the soldiers to keep an eye out for the turian and she had finally received word on where he had been hiding. She had given him space, respecting his grief, but she had finally judged enough time passed to risk speaking with him again. With so many lost in these dark times, they needed the companionship of friends and loved ones now, more than ever. Otherwise, what had they all fought so hard for?

Glancing back over her shoulder, she realized with surprise just how far she had come from the city, but she shook her head in silent determination. They had said Garrus was out here, somewhere, and she meant to find him. She was honestly surprised he had remained in the area at all, having expected him to return and help the other turians that remained stranded on Earth.

Climbing over a large stone block, she lost her footing and slid down a steep incline, sending dust flying and making a great deal of noise. Reaching the bottom with a pained grunt, she frantically checked to ensure her suit had not been damaged. Fortunately, aside from a few scratches and torn cloth, everything appeared intact and she let out a shaky breath as she straightened and looked around.

There was a quiet sound behind her and she slowly turned around and lifted her head to look up the barrel of a gun being aimed down at her by the very turian she had come to find.

"What are you doing out here, Tali?" Garrus asked wearily, slowly lowering the gun. He turned away before she could reply, as if he did not really care what her answer was.

Sighing softly, the quarian climbed up to him with slight difficulty and then looked around at the camp he had made into a home, with a sweeping view in all directions. He likely could have seen her coming for miles, though she had never seen him.

"I came to find you, Garrus," Tali replied, her voice slightly distorted through the suit as it always was. Garrus kept his back to her, resting his hands on a ledge and looking out over the wasteland that would someday be populated again. Tali walked up to stand beside him, the sun reflecting off the tinted purple glass mask that concealed her face as she looked around, though her attention was fixed entirely on the turian.

A long silence stretched out between them before Garrus finally sighed and glanced over at her, realizing she was not just going to go away again. "Maybe I didn't want to be found. What do you want?"

Tali turned to face the large turian, tilting her head up at him, only her glowing eyes faintly visible behind the glass. Few in the galaxy still knew what a quarian looked like underneath the mask, but hopefully in this new future Shepard had won for them, that would change. For now, she simply stared up at her friend in sympathy. "I wanted to speak with you, see how you were doing," she answered his question finally. "Shepard-"

"Don't," Garrus cut her off harshly, turning his back on her again. "I don't want to talk, Tali. If I did, I would have stayed within the city. I came out here to be alone." He glanced at her pointedly in a hint that she was welcome to take that as her exit cue, but the quarian stubbornly remained where she was. She had not trekked all this way for nothing.

"Garrus," she tried again, her voice soft with sympathy. "I miss her, too."

"Tali," Garrus said, a warning note in his voice, his hands clenched tightly to the stone ledge. "I do not want to talk about this."

The quarian crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at the stubborn turian, though the expression was hidden from sight behind the mask. "So this is how you honor the great Shepard?" she snapped at him, scorn heavy in her voice. "This is how you thank her for her sacrifice? She fought to the end so that we could all live, and you would thank her by not living. That seems to me a very poor way to repay such a brave woman-" She cut off abruptly in shock as Garrus snarled and whirled on her, shoving her roughly back against a still standing bit of stone wall.

"She was my life," he snapped, his face pressed close to the glass of her mask.

Undaunted, despite the immense strength of the turian, Tali replied back with equal force. "Is this what she would have wanted? Do you think this is what she died for, so you can wallow in self pity? If she is in what the humans call heaven looking down on you, is that what you want her to see?" She softened her tone slightly toward the end as Garrus flinched back and looked away from her. "Garrus, I understand your grief, but you must not throw away everything she fought for."

Garrus released Tali and she bit back a sigh of relief as her feet touched the ground once more. For just a moment there, she had not been entirely sure if she had gone too far or not.

The turian continued to look away from Tali, his words so soft she could barely catch them.  "I miss her so much, Tali. I still just can't believe she's really gone. After everything we've survived through together, I guess I just started to believe she might really be invincible, that nothing could stop her once she set her mind to something." He sighed heavily and he lowered his head, his eyes closed in pain. "I thought things would be so different, after we defeated the Reapers. We were going to retire to a beach somewhere tropical..." He trailed off, his hands clenched in a frustration that had no outlet.

Tali'Zorah swallowed the lump in her own throat and she reached out to touch Garrus' arm in sympathy. "The best way we can honor her is to help rebuild, to finish what she fought so hard for. Look what she accomplished, bringing all the races of the galaxy together. Who else could have stopped the geth and quarians from fighting, or gotten the turians and the krogan to work side by side?"

"I know," Garrus whispered. "We'll make it a beautiful world to honor her sacrifice, make it worth everything." He lifted his head and scanned the sky quietly, and Tali was surprised to realize dusk had fallen while they spoke.

The sky twinkled with stars and she knew Rannoch was out there, somewhere, waiting for the quarians to return. That thought suffused her with grateful warmth and reminded her that she had yet another thing to thank Shepard for. The geth would have destroyed the quarians, but instead Shepard had talked both sides into standing down, bringing about peace from a war some three hundred years running. "I'm going to miss her," Tali said softly, not even realizing she had spoken aloud as she gazed up at the stars, until Garrus replied to her.

"She..." he paused and swallowed the lump in his throat, "Shepard told me that if she was up there without us, she would be looking down... so we'd never be alone..."

Tali felt tears sting her eyes and she gripped Garrus' arm tightly. "We will get through this, Garrus. I promise. I will be here, if you need anything." The turian nodded and they stood together in silence for a long time, gazing at the stars as the sky gradually darkened to full night. Finally, she broke the silence again. "I should get back to the city, Garrus. Will you return with me, or will you stay out here?"

Garrus was silent for so long that she thought he might not answer. She finally turned to go, and he said, "I will go with you, Tali. Just, give me a few moments alone, and then I'll join you." She nodded and carefully clambered back down to the ground level, glad that she had stashed a flashlight in her many pockets.

After Tali was out of earshot, Garrus looked up at the night sky in the direction of the shattered Citadel and sighed softly in pain. "I miss you, Shepard. Damned irresponsible of you to go hang out at a bar and leave me to clean up the mess. You better have a cold one waiting for me when I get there..." A soft breeze caressed his face as if in answer, and he imagined it was her hand, if just for a moment. "Goodbye, Shepard." Gathering his things, he turned and climbed down to rejoin Tali'Zorah.