Chapter Text
Garrus hefted another heat sink from his dwindling pile and slotted it into his rifle. Each sink felt heavier than the last.
I could just stop gathering more when they take a breather, he thought, sighting down the bridge to the hasty barricade at the other end. Let this next wave be the last. He was so damned tired. Tired of fighting, mostly, but even more tired of fighting alone. That was the whole reason he’d put his squad together in the first place - no turian was made for standing alone, not even him.
Besides, the poor saps they’re sending me now are the dregs of Omega I was trying to help – they’re just throwing bodies at me trying to wear me out. It’s insulting. He thought about the merc band bosses – he knew he hadn’t done more than tag Garm a day prior. They were waiting for him to weaken so they could come in for the kill themselves. Wouldn’t want to disappoint them, I guess. Not after all we’ve been through. Ah, well. Might as well see what new bodies they’re sending into the grinder.
He swept the scope across the width of the bridge before he saw her. He froze. Reached forward and cleaned the scope lens, heart hammering. Sighted again – still there. His stomach swooped with hope and joy he hadn’t felt in years before he tamped it back down viciously.
I ’m getting more tired than I thought if I’m hallucinating…why would I see…
His thoughts scrambled, but the image in the scope never wavered. A surge of anger at the unfairness of it – at the gall of his subconscious to bring her before him now, at the end of his rope…
Crack!
Without really thinking, he’d sent a single burst round down the barrel, fueled only with his anger. He took his finger off the trigger, cursing his lack of discipline, but didn’t move his eye from the scope.
One round would barely touch her, if it’s really her…
Shields shattered, Shepard turned, glaring down the length of the bridge. He would have sworn she was looking right at him. After a moment, she broke off and ducked behind some crates, followed by two humans he barely registered.
It ’s her! I don’t know how, but it’s her! How is she here?
Nevermind how, another part of him thrilled. His heart pounded, emotions he’d buried deep surging up and through his veins. If she’s here, she’ll get to you. You just have to survive until she does.
And then what? a small voice asked in the back of his mind. What use would she have for a broken shell of a turian?
He silenced all the voices with a sniper’s discipline and settled into position, peering down his scope. It felt like forever until he spotted her again – long enough to make him question all over again if he’d really seen her – before he saw her moving down the bridge with a group of the ragged new mercs. He downed a few before she drew her shotgun and charged, biotic corona bright and snapping around her. The mercs fell into chaos as she ripped them apart from within their ranks. He picked off a few strays that scattered around her perimeter.
Sure fights like Shepard.
After a few minutes that felt like an eternity, he heard her and her squad making their way up the stairs behind him. He tried to wrestle his heart rate back under some semblance of control and failed. There’s no way it’s her. I’ve been awake for - spirits, at least 72 hours. I’m seeing ghosts.
“Archangel?” she said from behind him.
Not yet, he pleaded, suddenly terrified to turn around. Don’t let this dream end yet…please…
He raised his hand to signal her to wait - can hallucinations read hand gestures? - and sighted down his rifle scope again, looking for one last straggler. Picking off a single target at such short range barely needed his conscious intervention, even as tired as he was - which was good, because all his focus was on the slight sounds of movement from the three humans behind him. They sounded awfully solid for ghosts.
He took the shot. Down. He used his rifle to push himself out of his crouch and turned, unable to find any further excuse to delay the inevitable.
Please be real…
He took a step toward her before realizing he had moved at all. She looked solid enough - same armor, same hair, same piercing gaze. A few new scars, but she looked good for someone who had died two years ago. She’d already removed her helmet and was looking at him warily, but without a gun in her hands - which was more than he could say for the other two humans flanking her.
“Shepard,” he said, his voice sounding both strangled and far away. He pulled his helmet off with one hand, bracing the other on a nearby wall to keep himself upright. “I thought you were dead.”
Stupid. Two years, and that ’s what you say to her? If you’re going to talk to ghosts, Vakarian, you’d better at least say something worthwhile.
“Garrus!” she said, stepping forward with her arms wide as if she was going to throw them around him. She stopped short, and he was momentarily distracted by a wave of disappointment. “What are you doing here?”
Trying to be you, he thought desperately. And failing.
“Just…keeping my skills sharp,” he replied, voice rough with things he could neither name nor speak aloud. “A little target practice.”
“You okay?” she asked, eyeing him.
“Been better, but it sure is good to see a friendly face. Killing mercs is hard work, especially on my own.”
Spirits, shut up, Vakarian, he thought. Shepard doesn’t need to know how badly you fucked up.
“Your aim seems fine - you nailed me good a couple of times,” Shepard said, punching him lightly on his shoulder with a gauntleted fist. He had to engage more muscles than he cared to admit to keep the friendly blow from sending him staggering.
“Concussive rounds only, no harm done. Didn’t want the mercs getting suspicious.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If I wanted to do more than take your shields down, I’d have done it.” Shepard’s grin widened, her head still cocked to the side from her neck stretch. Garrus’s eyes darted to where her startlingly smooth skin was visible above the collar of her black armor. “Besides, I -” had to make sure you were real “- you were taking your sweet time. I needed to get you moving.”
Shepard snorted softly, straightening to her full height. Garrus shifted in his seat.
“Well, we got here, but I don’t think getting out will be as easy.”
“No, it won’t,” Garrus replied, standing and turning toward the bridge. He stifled a groan - how had his legs stiffened so badly from just a few minutes of sitting still? “That bridge has saved my life…funneling all those witless idiots into scope. But it works both ways. They’ll slaughter us if we try to get out that way.”
“I hate waiting, anyway,” Shepard said, joining him at the balcony railing. Garrus’s eyes flicked to Shepard’s fingers, already tapping a restless rhythm on the railing, and suppressed a chuckle. Just as impatient as ever. “Got any other suggestions?”
Some small, bruised part of him bristled - she was asking him for suggestions like she was running the op. His op.
And a great job you ’ve done so far, Vakarian.
He shoved that feeling down as far as he could. Shepard was still watching him.
“This place has held them off so far. And with the three of you…” He glanced at the two humans with Shepard. He’d almost forgotten they existed. He didn’t recognize either of them, and in his haze of exhaustion he hadn’t noticed the insignias on their armor. What in the hells is Shepard doing with Cerberus of all people? The woman of the pair met his gaze - she’d seen him looking at the insignia. Her expression was unreadable - not that he’d ever been the best judge of human expressions. Dammit…time for questions later. “I suggest we hold this location, wait for a crack in their defenses, and take our chances.” He was still looking at the Cerberus woman as he spoke, and even he couldn’t miss the tiny smirk of derision on her face. “It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s a plan.”
“How’d you let yourself get into this position, anyway?” Shepard asked.
I tried to be you.
“We were betrayed by one of my men,” he said bitterly. “I didn’t see it coming - my feelings got in the way of my better judgment. It’s a long story.” Memories he could neither banish nor confront pressed in on the edge of his awareness. He saw Shepard looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t bear to look to see if it was with pity or with censure. “I’ll make you a deal: you get me out of here alive, and I’ll tell you the whole damn thing.” So you can decide if you even want me at your back. Spirits know you shouldn’t.
“I’ll hold you to that. I’ve never been any good at sniping - that’s always been your thing,” Shepard said, stepping closer. Garrus was still looking down at his rifle, but her gauntleted hands were in his peripheral vision. Shepard rubbed one over the other in an unconscious imitation of a habit he’d seen a hundred times on the Normandy. Shepard and her - what did she call it? “Knuckle-cracking”? Humans just have fizzy joints, it’s fine, they only sound like they’re breaking bone. “Time to do this my way.”
Garrus couldn’t help but grin at the obvious, if grim, joy in Shepard’s voice. She glanced at each of the humans and nodded to either side, signaling them to take up positions. Both had guns in hand and the tell-tale glow of biotics wreathing them as they moved into position. Shepard stayed next to Garrus, pulling out an assault rifle.
“Glad to see you haven’t changed. Let’s see what they’re up to…” He peered down the bridge through his scope. “They’ve reinforced the other side - heavily. But they’re not coming over the bridge yet. What are they waiting for?”
He’d barely finished the sentence when an explosion rocked the floor beneath his feet. He swayed from the blast and from exhaustion, but Shepard put a hand to his elbow to steady him before he could right himself. He was overcome with a sense of loss when she let go.
“Dammit, they’ve breached the lower level,” he said, glancing toward the stairs to cover his confusion. “Well, they had to use their brains eventually. You’d better get down there, Shepard - we need those tunnels sealed, or they’ll overrun us.” He looked back down the bridge - Eclipse was sending mercs and mechs in droves, now. “Dammit. They’ve teamed up - you go below. I’ll keep the bridge clear.”
“Let’s split up two and two - keep one of my team here,” she said, moving away from the wall. The other two humans joined her, waiting for orders.
“You sure? Who knows what you’ll find down there. I’ll be alright on my own.” Liar.
“I’m sure,” she said, turning to meet his gaze. You’re a liar, and she knows it. Garrus fought not to turn away, not to break eye contact - Shepard always saw too much, even when he wasn’t reeling from exhaustion and shock, but looking away felt like an admission of guilt.
You are guilty. She already knows. She can see.
He looked away.
“Miranda - stay with Garrus. Keep him alive.”
“Yes, Shepard.”
“Thanks, Shepard.” He met her gaze again, and the mixture of concern and steel nearly brought him to his knees. “You’d better get going.”
He turned back to the railing and fiddled with the stock of his sniper rifle, refusing to watch her walk away down the stairs. His heart hammered with the need to not let her back out of his sight, but he shoved it down and scoped down across the bridge.
“The tunnels are swarming with them,” Shepard’s voice said in his ear, over the comms. His arm wavered, the view in the scope swinging wildly. In his first days on Omega, taking down mercs where he could, desperate odds left and right - he’d felt like she was with him, like her voice would crackle to life over the comms again any moment. Hearing it again now was almost too much.
“You’ll need to seal the tunnels off to keep them out,” he repeated, just to keep her talking. Don’t leave me again.
“On it,” she said, gunfire in the background. “Stay safe.”
“On it.”
~
The tunnels were sealed, Eclipse was out of mechs, and Garm was a corpse before he saw Shepard again. Garrus’ aim was wavering more than he’d ever admit, but with Shepard and her stony-faced teammates around, he was barely having to do any of his own shooting.
“Thanks, Shepard - they hardly got through to me. And we took out Garm and his Blood Pack. This day just gets better and better.” Ghosts rose in Garrus’s blood as he said it, bitterness staining the momentary triumph.
“You’ve fought him before?” Shepard asked, rounding the top of the stairs and joining him at the balcony edge once more. She clapped him on the shoulder and let her hand linger for a moment before dropping it to the railing.
“Yeah, we tangled once. Caught him alone, none of his gang to help him. I still couldn’t take him out.” Unlike his recent losses, the memory of this failure was neither sharp nor painful - it had been a good fight, even if he’d had to leave it at a stalemate. “I’ve never seen a krogan regen that fast. He’s a freak of nature. He just kept at it until his vorcha showed up. It was close, but I had to let him go.” He paused, sighting down the scope to where Garm’s body lay. Not regenerating your way out of that one. “Not this time.”
“Only the Blue Suns left,” Shepard said, squinting down the length of the bridge. “I say we take our chances and fight our way out. I want you out of here before you fall over.”
“My delicate constitution aside, I think you’re right,” Garrus replied. “Tarak’s got the toughest group, but nothing we haven’t faced before. Besides, he won’t be expecting us to-”
He cut off abruptly as a loud whirring noise broke over the left side of the balcony. Tarak’s gunship loomed, firing indiscriminately into the room. Shepard pivoted away behind a couch as Garrus took the meager cover offered by a potted plant.
“Dammit! I thought I took that thing out already.”
“They fixed it, but not completely,” Shepard said, smug.
“You always did enjoy breaking people’s toys,” Garrus said. Shepard grinned and winked at him.
They both paused to trade shots with a pair of Blue Suns who leapt from the hovering gunship. One was down before his feet could hit the floor, but the other made it into cover. His success was short-lived, however - Garrus wasn’t sure which human’s biotics had pulled the merc out of cover and into the air, but he took the shot before shifting out from behind the well-blasted planter to the other end of Shepard’s couch. One less.
“Archangel!” called Tarak from the gunship. “You think you can screw with the Blue Suns? This ends now!”
His proclamation was punctuated with the sound of rockets being fired. Garrus’s eyes met Shepard’s, his horror mirrored on her face. Despite his exhaustion, he was a hair faster - he reached out and shoved her away with every bit of his remaining strength, letting his rifle clatter to the floor. She cleared the couch just as the rocket hit his end.
Garrus felt himself fly backward and hit the floor. In the moment, the impact with the floor hurt worse than whatever of the rocket had made it through shitty plastic and worse cushion to hit him, but he knew dimly that wouldn’t last.
Not sure much of anything is going to last, now.
“Garrus, hold on,” Shepard demanded above him. She hovered over him, clinging to the even-less-appropriate cover of the destroyed couch to stay with him.
Go, he tried to say, but his mandibles wouldn’t obey him, and he knew she wouldn’t heed him even if he could talk. All I wanted was to see you one more time. It’s okay. Go.
“Hold on, dammit,” she said between shots at the gunship, in an undertone he surely wasn’t meant to hear. “I’m not losing you again, Garrus, hold on.” Her voice was strained in a way he’d never heard before. He’d always thought that human voices were curiously flat, without the subharmonics that were so essential to turian voices, but hers was rich with meaning in that moment that was just out of his reach.
He desperately wanted to know what it meant. Almost against his own will, he clung on - to what, he wasn’t sure. To the sound of her voice as she stood above him, muttering curses and pleading alike between bouts of gunfire. After far too long, he realized the gunfire had ceased and his eyes had drifted closed.
No!
He snapped his eyes open and gasped for air, casting around for any sight of Shepard. She leaned above him.
“Garrus,” she said, almost in a whisper. She reached out and put a gauntleted hand on the shoulder of his suit. “It’s okay - we’re going to get you out of here.”
I believe you, he thought, but he could hold to consciousness no longer. He slipped under, wishing he could feel that hand on his shoulder.
~
Garrus woke with a start and found himself alone. For a moment, he felt all the crushing disappointment he’d felt for the past two years every time he’d dreamed of Shepard - then his surroundings intruded and confused him further.
I’m…on the Normandy? In the medbay?
Was Shepard being alive a dream…or was it her death that wasn’t real?
Confusion and pain warred for dominance, but the pain eventually cut through the confusion - his face hurt, and even more, it itched. The itch was the telltale after effect of regenerative technology applied urgently. He’d taken a rocket to the face, Shepard was alive, and he was somehow in a medbay that looked exactly like the Normandy’s.
What in all the hells…
It felt inadvisable even before he started, but Garrus sat up gingerly. Looking around, he spotted a few differences - not the Normandy, but damn close. An upgraded copy.
“You’re awake!” came a familiar voice as the door to the medbay opened to admit Dr. Chakwas. “Glad to see it.”
“Doctor-” Garrus began, but his words were swallowed by a cough and a grimace.
“Take it easy, Garrus,” Chakwas said, moving to stand beside the bed. “Especially, I’d suggest keeping the talking to a minimum for now - you’re healing nicely, but that was quite an impressive injury.”
“Minimum - okay,” he said, moving his mandible as little as possible. The restriction rendered his voice flat, making the moment feel even more surreal. He wanted to shout. The doctor handed him a cup of water with a straw, which he sipped from gratefully to wet his parched throat. “Where?”
“That depends - where are we? We’re on the Normandy SR-2, in the medbay.” She watched him carefully as she emphasized SR-2. He nodded, and she continued. “Where is Shepard?” His heart rate spiked at the mention of Shepard’s name and the confirmation that she really was alive. Hooked up as he was to medical monitors, Chakwas noted the spike; her face softened. “She’s in the conference room, and-” she put out a hand to stop his attempt to swing his leg off the bed, “-just as soon as I’ve run a few last tests, I’ll let you go find her.”
Under her familiar, stern gaze, he settled impatiently back on the bed to submit to her tests. He remembered her stubbornness well - surely it would be faster to let her run her scans, rather than fighting her.
As she worked, Garrus’s eyes fell on the logo patch on her uniform.
Cerberus.
I need to find Shepard.
At last, after blood tests, scans, and one last round of numbing cream for his admittedly-aching jaw, Chakwas reluctantly cleared him to leave - but not before sternly instructing him to get some sleep as soon as he was able, and to see her again in the morning for a follow-up. She delivered this admonition while helping him into his battered armor.
In his hurry to get out before she changed her mind - and his rising desperation to see Shepard again - he entirely neglected to ask for directions. The elevator was in the same place, though, and he blessed whatever designers had put a floor guide on the elevator controls. He managed to find the comms room without too much fumbling. He heard the male human who’d been with Shepard on Omega - Jacob - talking as the door slid open to admit him.
“…best we can tell, he’ll have full functionality, but…”
He rounded the corner into the conference room and stopped short at the sight of her.
“Shepard.”
She and Jacob both turned toward him.
“Tough son of a bitch - didn’t think he’d be up yet.”
Garrus barely recognized Jacob’s words, so focused was he on the sight of Shepard. She was in casual clothes, not armor, but she was here, alive, and smiling to see him. Her smile faltered into something akin to concern.
“No one would give me a mirror. How bad is it?” he said, aiming for a light tone and missing. Shepard looked at him consideringly for a moment, and he shivered. Had he always felt like he was stripped this bare in front of her?
Her expression shifted into one of mischief.
“Hell, Garrus, you were always ugly. Slap some face-paint on there, and no one will even notice.”
Despite everything boiling in his gut, Garrus started to laugh. “Ha-ah! Don’t make me laugh, damn it. My face is barely holding together as it is.” Shepard grinned at him. “Some women find facial scars attractive,” he continued. “Mind you, most of those women are krogan…”
Shepard shook her head, laughing. Something deep inside Garrus flared violently to life and settled at the same time - a searing sensation that took his breath away. It was something he’d only ever felt once before, when he’d been pulling a very battered and dusty Shepard out of the rubble after the battle of the Citadel. He was so preoccupied with the feeling that he hardly noticed Jacob leaving until the door to the conference room shut behind him. The sound brought him back to the present.
“Frankly, I’m more worried about you than I am about a few scratches,” he said, voice rough. “Cerberus, Shepard? You do remember those sick experiments they were doing?”
“That’s why I’m glad you’re here, Garrus,” she said, leaning on the conference table. His eyes flicked down to her hands - just before she put her weight on them, he could have sworn he saw a tremor. “I woke up without much of a choice in the matter, but if I’m walking into hell, I want someone I trust at my side.”
Complicated human facial expressions be damned - her eyes were practically screaming for him to say he’d help her. In all the time they’d worked together, chasing down Saren, he’d never seen her look at him with such need.
“You realize this plan has me walking into hell, too,” he said, holding her gaze with effort. “Hah. Just like old times.” The naked relief on her face was almost too much. “Shepard - you said, ‘woke up’? What happened to you?”
“Not here,” she said softly, eyes darting to a curious electronic pad at one end of the conference table. He couldn’t immediately identify its purpose, but his thoughts drifted back to the Cerberus logo on Chakwas’s uniform - on everyone’s uniform but Shepard’s. He nodded his understanding, and Shepard relaxed marginally.
“I’m fit for duty whenever you need me, Shepard,” he said at a normal volume. He glanced one more time at the pad on the table. “I’ll settle in and see what I can do at the forward batteries.”
~
The door to the battery slid open. Garrus’s head snapped up, narrowly missing the edge of the control panel next to where he was setting up his borrowed cot. He straightened to see Shepard lingering in the doorway and told himself that his elevated heart rate was from the unsecured entrance and unfamiliar surroundings.
“There you are,” she said when she spotted him. “Settling in okay?”
“Well enough,” he replied as she moved around the main console to take in his setup. He gestured to it with mock grandiosity. “Cozy, isn’t it?”
“Very. At least it’s more private than your bunk in the cargo bay on the SR-1. Someday, the Normandy will have to get some turian-friendly sleeping arrangements.”
“Mmm - it wouldn’t hurt my feelings,” he replied. “Though I guess I wouldn’t have expected Cerberus to think to put them in, anyway. I’m guessing they built this ship?”
“They built more than the ship,” Shepard said with a sigh. She turned toward the door and faced another of those curiously flat panels. “EDI - set this conversation to private, please.”
“Very well, Shepard,” came a voice from the panel.
“Ship VI a little nosy?” Garrus asked, sitting down and leaning back against the wall behind the head of the cot. He pulled one leg up and crossed it over his other knee.
“More than a little…and more than a VI,” Shepard replied, joining him on the cot. “EDI’s a true AI. Also made by Cerberus.”
“Spirits, Shepard.”
“I know.”
“How in the hells did you manage to hook up with Cerberus?” he asked, leaning forward. “I mean, not that I’m not overjoyed to see you alive.” In fact, ‘overjoyed’ felt like a pale imitation of the feeling bubbling in his chest whenever he looked at her. “Let’s start there, actually - Shepard, I am so damn glad to see you.” His voice broke on the last word and he stopped, halting the flow before it could become a flood. He flattened his palms against the cot to keep his hands from shaking or reaching out.
“I could say the same to you,” she replied. She scooted further onto the cot and pulled her feet up, hugging her knees against her chest. Her eyes looked watery when she glanced at him, but she glanced away again too fast for him to be sure. She knocked her knee against his leg. “I’m really glad you’re here, Garrus.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Garrus finally broke it.
“How are you alive?”
“I wasn’t. Cerberus found my body and rebuilt me,” she said. Her voice was layered with too many emotions for him to tease them apart. “You met Miranda? She was in charge of the project. They called it Project Lazarus. I just woke up a few weeks ago - still piecing things together myself.” She gestured to her own face, where there were faintly-glowing cracked scars criss-crossing her cheeks. The low lighting of the main battery made them much more apparent. “Literally, I guess.”
“Well, that explains…kind of a lot, actually.” Garrus was silent for a minute as he mulled over what Shepard had said. A thousand questions shot through his mind, but he glanced at the pensive expression on Shepard’s face and swallowed them all.
The Council put you through hell, then Cerberus dragged you back for more.
Cerberus, of all the groups. He chuckled, and Shepard looked at him inquiringly. “All that time we spent wrecking Cerberus’s mad science experiments, and then they go and use all that money and crazy to upgrade the Normandy - and they bring you back from the dead, to boot.”
“Bet you never thought you’d be talking to one of their ‘science experiments’,” Shepard said, shifting in her seat and not meeting his eyes.
“If you are, so am I,” Garrus pointed out. Shepard looked up at him, face uncertain. Garrus gestured at the worst of the wounds on his face. “When I went to get the cot from Chakwas, she insisted on doing a few more scans. She told me we have some of the same cybernetics holding our faces together, now. We’re a matched set.”
“Of science experiments.”
“Of very ruggedly handsome science experiments with interesting backstories that might impress women.”
Shepard laughed, and although the sound was rusty, something tense uncoiled in Garrus’s chest.
“So that’s how you found yourself on a Cerberus ship - why stick with them? Why not head back to the Alliance?”
“I’m not with Cerberus as it is,” Shepard said. “But they’ve uncovered something that the Alliance isn’t doing anything about. Someone’s been attacking human colonies and taking the colonists. The Alliance stonewalled me - even Anderson wouldn’t tell me anything. As far as I can tell, they’re not willing to do anything about it. Cerberus is, so…I’ll at least hear them out. For now.” She glanced at him, still uncertain - like she was looking for his approval.
“Sounds good to me - as long as I’m here to watch your back.”
A flush of guilt spread through him at that cocky statement - how could he think he was worthy of watching her back? - but Shepard smiled warmly. He tamped down the guilt and clung to that smile.
“Wouldn’t leave the job to anyone else.” She uncurled from her tight posture and stretched before standing. “I should let you get some rest before Chakwas finds me keeping you up.”
“Yeah, really don’t want to be on the bad side of the only other friendly face on this ship.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen Joker yet?” Shepard asked, surprised.
“I said friendly face, Shepard, not familiar, but yes, I do know where to go to get my daily lesson in human sarcasm.”
“Get some rest,” Shepard said with a laugh. “We have a lot ahead of us.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Garrus laid down obediently on the cot. Shepard left the battery, and as the door closed behind her, Garrus’s heart rate spiked. He had to grip the cot to keep from leaping up to follow her through the door, keep her from disappearing from view. His mind buzzed and couldn’t settle, jumping uncontrollably from one memory to another.
He saw Shepard, the last time he’d seen her before the Normandy’s destruction.
He saw Vikran, his tech specialist, covered in his own blood and Mitral’s, rasping out his last report as he died.
He saw Sidonis, the first time they’d met in that damn bar on Omega.
Shepard is alive, your team is beyond your help, and Sidonis will keep until you find him, he told himself firmly. He forced his muscles to relax as far as possible, falling back on his sniper training to calm his heartbeat and breathing. He stared at a spot on the ceiling where the wrong size rivet had been used in the interior wall panel and focused on the texture of the cot underneath him, the faintly metallic scent of the room. Little by little, he wrenched his body back under his control, and the memories sank back into the aether.
He was just beginning to wonder how he was ever going to fall asleep when sleep overtook him.