forgivetheinsubordination | IC Contact

[It went fine, all things considered. But how bad could they potentially screw up playing fetch? The apiary could've been a stumbling block, but in the end it was just time consuming - seventy two plus hours of listening to Zelos Wilder loving the sound of his own voice and tugging at an over grown moose to convince it to come back to camp with them. Simple stuff.

But she's betting the answer doesn't really matter - because they're all still around, for one, and no one on Grey ended up getting the shit kicked out of them. There are bigger things to focus on than how some rag tag team did picking crap up off the forest floor.]

If you want to look at it that way.

[Said in the distinct tones of someone who has either opted not to or is telling herself as much. She doesn't have time for that particular brand of self flagellation.]

How do you look at it?

[Because right now, he doesn't want statements that can mean anything. He's just been tortured with no answers, he's worried about how things are going, and everything he gets is words that can be taken any way. Dagger's warning. This. His conversation with Noh-Varr.

At least she's played politics a little more than him, even if most of was to temporarily appease the Council before hanging up on them. This is his first foray into something this murky.]

Doing what's necessary.

[Which sounds like some kind of line off an Alliance recruitment ad, but there's a line of fervor there that says she's being genuine. It's something she brought with her, not something working for the CDC taught her. It's the frank understanding of a situation that allows for things like wiping out the Bahak system. Like landing on Macha and knowing not to get attached. Like telling Morir with a frank kind of honesty that she doesn't really care what happened on the gag ordered mission because no one died on it and it wasn't going to change what happened to the planet.]

Look, ninety percent of the bullshit we do could look morally reprehensible from another angle. That doesn't mean you don't do it just because someone else is going to be uncomfortable with it, right? I've got something I need to do and I'm not going to lose sleep at night over what I have to do to make it happen.

[If she's going to have nightmares about something, it's going to be losing everything - not the things she has to do to make sure she doesn't. Right?]

[Which is... rather in line with everything else. It's in line with what he's been doing, in line with what the CDC wants from them, and in line with the way someone else he knows had seemed to act.]

What's necessary to save a few, against something that seems too big to deal with otherwise.

[The trees are in sight by now, and he wishes he could really focus on them as a distraction. He'd give a lot to find a way to avoid what's going on in his head right now.]

Sounds familiar. And not just because it's what I've been doing.

[Which needs to be said so she doesn't think he's judging her. He isn't.]

Someone said something along those lines to us once. Couple of years back. Big guy. Don't know if you remember him.

[Went by the name Saren.]

Trying to figure out if I'm becoming like him. Hard sort of thing to wrap my head around.

[Especially when he knew the answer he didn't want to reach might be the honest one.]

[Her focus, pinned toward the tree line, shifts then - flicking over and fixing on him like a sniper scope (something he should, given the givens, know a thing or two about). There's something exacting to how she looks at him, unshaken by the suggestion. They've known a lot of 'big guys' but there's no mistaking who Garrus means. It isn't hard to draw a line from this to Saren, especially if it's someone Garrus is comparing himself to.]

That's bullshit. [Cutting to the quick. She draws up completely then. Screw huskberries and truffles - medical can deal for a few extra minutes this takes.] Saren wasn't trying to save a few, he was trying to save himself. You're nothing like him. So unless you're going to start comparing me to the The Illusive Man, you can probably afford to cut yourself some slack.

Bought that for a while, that he was working for himself. At the end, though...

[When Saren had tried to kill himself, before Garrus had gone down to make sure the job was done, they'd had a glimpse of something else.]

He'd been indoctrinated for a long time, Shepard. Maybe a part of him really did think he was saving a portion of the turian people with his cooperation. And he would have taken out the galaxy to do so. Is this really that much different? Saving my homeworld, saving yours, taking away a whole lot of others in the process?

I like to think if we were being indoctrinated, we'd be a lot less pissed off about it.

[She isn't destroying planets for Earth or for Palaven or for a small subset of people she cares about. She isn't doing this for 'the few' or even her universe. At some point - between here and the Neheda - things have changed.]

If the only reason you're here is to keep your planet in one piece then you'd be better off dying on mission. [It's a brutal, dangerous thing to say - especially when she knows he's been feeling the sting of their lack of agency, the lack of control they have in any of this. Maybe his contract isn't like hers, but she doubts it; neither of them are getting out of this and they're never going back to see the result of their work. Not if they play by the rules.]

I don't know about you, but I've got bigger fish to fry.

[He's not sure if she's trying to provoke him into feeling better or if she's not thinking. Either way, the whole bigger-fish thing... Sure, everyone knows a bunch of people hate the CDC. But it's not the smartest thing to just say that's the endgame. To get stronger and destroy it somehow.

The look in Garrus' eyes is flat as he closes the distance to the first tree and starts picking.]

That's what you've got to say on that? Not that there are parallels, because there are, but that if my goals aren't big enough, I should be dead?

[He shakes his head.]

Might not be as good at sneaking as some. But apparently I'm a little better than others. Unless we want to just talk about these fish outright.

Sure, why not.

[Does that sound like she's jumping out of a shuttle without a parachute? Because it probably should - dangerous and crazy in the moment before she launches into:]

Say you do what you have to and keep the CDC from blowing your planet up. Great. Good for you. So now what's going to stop the Reapers from wiping it off off the map anyway?

[Those aren't the big fish she means, but it's a more than decent cover for anyone with an ear to the conversation - and given the parameters of her contract, that's all that really matters. And it isn't like she's ever been good at clever maneuvering. Telling people to be her flanking back up? Sure. But her specialty has always been gunning straight for an issue.]

Don't play to survive, play to win. As long as that's what you're doing, any similarities you think you have with Saren don't matter.

[The ends justify the means or some crap like that.]

I'm playing to win. But I'm also playing to not lose me. I won't be able to go back to the home I'm trying to save, but at least I hope to still be able to live with myself. For whatever time I have left.

[He... hadn't thought he needed to say he was going to win this thing. Not considering his mission request, not considering how he's been trying to get somewhere in the ranking so he can actually do more.]

Is staying on Grey helping you win, though?

[Is anyone going to listen to her while she's on Grey? If she sees an opportunity and makes a move, who, out of her crew, would back her up? And why is Shepard still on Grey?]

Well it's not hurting me.

[Not yet. On a very basic, fundamental level being on Grey has probably given her marginally better odds when it comes to dying in the field actually given the scale of their assignments has been 'glorified fetch' and playing with robot dogs. She can't see it doing her any good in the long run, but it's also not up to her. If doing what she deems necessary isn't enough to get her back into normal rotation, then fine. She just has to trust that if it comes time to move, the people she expects to be with her won't hang back because of the color on her CDC issue armband.

She cares more about that than the rest - rank or intel or being able to live with herself.]

[Sometimes, in some ways, it hurts him, her position on Grey. She's one of his best friends, one of his oldest friends, and she's been punished for so long. Garrus doesn't know that there's anything she can do about it, though. He doesn't know if she can, not if she wants to. There are so many better ways to use her talents... then again, he feels the same way about his demotion. Sometimes it doesn't seem like the CDC really knows how to use its resources. At all.]

I hope it's not, Shepard. I really hope it's not. But even if it was, it's not like I have any real suggestions here. If I knew what they did, why, if I knew what was driving them...

[Because they're a company, but Garrus really doesn't think it's profit. He really doesn't.]

IC Contact - Consignment

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