Got about halfway through Eden Prime and I lost all motivation to play through the entire game with Fen. I basically knew what her choices were gonna be in ME2.
So I decided to start her out in ME2 instead. Found a good save to use at Mass Effect Saves. And started the game.
She only just woke up, so she’s cranky. This should be more fun, cause I’m not exactly sure what will happen here. The only thing I know has to happen is she’s going to destroy Maelon’s data to set up Mordin going into hiding in ME3.
Oh, and Garrus is totally gonna shoot Sidonis, cause that’s how this soon-to-be power couple rolls.
Fen has a grudge against quarians thanks to her Mindoir days. Unapologetic when it came down to killing Wrex on Virmire. Sabotaged the genophage cure. Garrus gladly joined her in being a renegade. Destroy Ending.
Thanks to a writing meet-up with @dawntreaderflynne today, I realized just how much I actually want to start my renegade Garrus romancer playthrough. So I started it. :D
This is Fen Shepard.
She’s angry about a lot of things in her life. She’s got a major grudge against the quarian fleet. Individual quarians like Tali or Kal’Reegar are okay, but the fleet? She blames them for the loss of her family on Mindoir.
Thanks to a fight with a krogan, she ended up with an artificial liver at age twenty-four. On her ankle, there’s a tattoo of the number 59, which is the number of unit members she lost at Torfan.
Fen is knows she’s good-looking and is willing to use that as a weapon when needed.
Some of the choices I know she’ll take is she’ll save Kaidan. Garrus will take the renegade option during his quest (he gladly joins her down the renegade path!). And that she’ll kill Wrex. (*sniff*)
Other than that, no clue what will happen. I’ll update as I go along!
This is Fen Shepard and Garrus. She’s not my favorite (but I do like her a lot!) but I have the same prompt already with them, so it’s time to spread the love around!
#
What happens when the truth comes out?
Shepard’s an old hand at secrets and lies. She knows it’s not a matter of if the krogan discover that she sabotaged the cure to the genophage, but when.
But over the years, she’s learned how to put on an act. She says all the right things to Wreav, publicly mourns the loss of Eve, all while hiding the truth: that she single-handedly destroyed the korgan’s best chance for a future.
Only Garrus seems to see through her act, but she can’t reveal her secret, not yet.
The clans start a bonfire, and Wreav seems determined to show off. Already fights have broken out and more than once Shepard needs to jump out of the way of a bout. She wants off of Tuchanka, to forget about the planet that will sacrifice their warriors to fight the Reapers and will then come home to a silent tomb.
She find a patch of green, a little patch of hope is what Eve called it, and sits down. A moment later, Garrus joins her, and they sit side by side.
Her hand finds his, and she wonders if he’ll think less of her when he learns the truth.
“Suppose we did some good today,” Garrus says after the silence stretched out between them too long.
Shepard’s first instinct is to shake her head, to deny that what she did today will lead to anything that might be considered good.
But then Wreav stands up and starts to make a speech. And as he talks about his vision for the future of the krogan, the vice around Shepard’s chest starts to unclamp.
“You’re right, Garrus,” Shepard says, sitting up a little straighter. “We absolutely did do some good today.”
Ooooh, are Fen Shadowlark and Fen Shepard related/are they same person? How are they alike? How are they different?
Oh what a fun question! I tend to recycle names until they end up with a ‘definitive’ character. The names Sonya and Fen come from Guild Wars. The names Anelle, Wynneth and Bethroot are all from LotRO.
Fen Shadowlark and Fen Shepard are complete opposites. Fen Shadowlark is basically Kasumi. She’s cheerful, proud of her skills and wants to help people. (Please note Fen Shadowlark was created in 2009, before I had any idea who Kasumi was. :D) I didn’t play her all that much, because I really wasn’t a good assassin. (I really preferred the magic classes in GW). But I loved her look. That hood she wore in the picture? She never took it off. And while some assassins wore big fancy armor, she loved the simplicity of the starter armor (at max armor levels, of course).
And then there’s Fen Shepard. Shepard is nothing like Shadowlark. Fen Shepard is angry. There are moments when she’ll be calm (like in the Playing House fic I just posted), but most of the time, she’s a ball of righteous fury. She cuts through the bullshit and could gives a rats ass about diplomacy as long as the job gets done. And she never set out to make friends among the crew. Even with Garrus. When she talked about stress relief, that’s what she was looking for and was a bit annoyed he wanted to put it off, cause she was stressed and she was stressed now.
Their backstories actually do have a bit in common. Shadowlark was from a small village outside the monastery. When she was young, it was attacked by a guild and the Crimson Skulls guild fought them off. Her parents were killed in the raid, so the Crimson Skulls took her in and trained her. Shepard is from Mindoir and we all know what happened there.
Notes: So this was one of the first ME fics I started, way back in the summer of ‘13. It was before I understood the relationship between Garrus and Sonya. And as that relationship evolved, I realized this fic would never, ever work for them. However, as I’m delving into Fen Shepard a bit, I realized that it would work for her and Garrus. So I tidied it up and here we go!
#
“So in between the madness of discovering I have a clone and everything, I didn’t have time to ask. Did we have a fight I forgot about?”
Garrus glances up from the couch where he has been lounging. Damn thing is far more comfortable than it looks. Shepard’s walking down the stairs, her blonde hair still wet from the shower. There’s a sly grin on her face, one that Garrus recognizes as trouble.
She walks over to him and holds out her hand to help him up. With a shake of his head, Garrus declines. After having been awake for more more than thirty hours only to have a four hour nap, he is more than happy to stay on this very comfortable couch and simply never move again. This apartment definitely has some flaws, but he could see he and Shepard being content here.
Placing his hand in hers, Garrus pulls Shepard onto his lap. She lets out a surprised bark of a laugh as she settles herself on top of him, knees on either side of his hips, her bare forearms brushing his neck. “Well?” Shepard asks, arching an eyebrow.
“You lost me, Shepard,” Garrus admits, preferring to concentrate on the way her hips are pressing down on his.
“I’m on the outs with my human girlfriend,” Shepard says, doing a poor imitation of his voice. She presses her lips to his mouth plates. “Ring any bells?
Garrus flicks out his mandibles in a grin. The highlight of the entire mission, in his opinion, was their trip to the casino, where he actually had some fun. Not every day a turian like him walks the red carpet with someone like Shepard on his arm. She looked absolutely breath taking, with those heels that made her legs look like they went on for days and that smoky eye thing she did.
Even better than the red carpet was making Shepard laugh while he provided ridiculous distractions. Part of him wonders how they didn’t get kicked out.
Sliding his hands up her thighs, Garrus says, “I hate to break this to you, Shepard, but one of these days, we’re going to have an honest-to-goodness fight.” He rests the palm of his hands comfortably on her ass. “Been smooth sailing so far, but one day, that will change.”
“A fight, huh?” Shepard says, leaning in close, so her mouth is next to his ear canal. With one hand, she draws circles on the side of the neck. Distractingly. Very distractingly. “Why does it seem like you’re looking forward to that?
“Two words, Shepard,” Garrus says, letting his voice drop low, the way he knows she likes particularly. “Make-up sex.”
Shepard bites her lip and smiles encouragingly. “Make-up sex?”
He runs his talons through her hair. “At some point, we’ll have a fight. It will be, according to the vids at least, completely my fault.” Taking his hands, he slides his talons into the waistband of her trousers, reveling in her soft skin. “We might want to practice. We could go have some make-up sex right now.”
She hums. “Make-up sex without a fight?”
"Consider it motivation for the real fight. You'll remember how great the make-up sex was, get you to forgive me that much faster," Garrus tells her. He leans forward and gently runs his tongue down her neck. She shivers, just like he knew she would.
"Sound pretty sure of yourself, there, Vakarian."
He drops his voice low, to the pitch that always gets a reaction from her. "Damn straight I am. You haven't seen all my moves yet, Shepard."
“Mmm… you’re right,” Shepard says, her hand stroking beneath his fringe, making him shiver. “Make-up sex is sounding pretty good right about now.”
And then Garrus’ stomach decides to ruin the mood, letting out a low grumble, reminding him just how hungry he is. He only ate half a ration bar before they took their nap. Shepard, at least, ate two slices of cold pizza for her breakfast.
Shepard pats his stomach with a smirk. “Hold that thought. Let’s get you some lunch, big guy,” she says. She stands and stares into the kitchen. “I’ll have some groceries delivered this afternoon. Levo and dextro. Might be nice to actually use the kitchen.”
“I definitely wouldn’t mind cooking,” Garrus says, thinking of some of the meals he could prepare for himself in the kitchen. A turian gets tried of living on rations and nutrient paste all the time.
She jumps off his lap, holding out her hand. This time, Garrus lets her help him off of the couch. As they walk to the door, Garrus can’t help but think they looked like any other normal couple going out on a date. Shepard’s blonde hair is pulled back from her face with a headband and she wears a simple pair of trousers with a white shirt tucked in and her leather jacket. He wears just a regular suit, nothing fancy, and neither one of them carries a weapon. Well, one that isn’t concealed, anyway.
“What are you in the mood for?” Shepard asks as they walk down the hall, holding hands. “And I swear if you say sushi I will not be responsible for my actions.”
Sushi, of course is exactly what Garrus planned on saying. “I know a levo-dextro buffet we can go to.”
“Sounds good to me,” Shepard says.
“And it’s not my fault if they serve sushi.”
#
Lunch, by their standards iss a success. Of course, Shepard’s standards might be considered unique. Garrus knows Shepard thinks any meal in public when she isn’t stopped by the press or a well-wisher or casual admirer to be successful. The restaurant Garrus chose was out of the way and no one seemed to realize who they were, which suited both of them just fine.
On the way back to the apartment, Shepard stops at a furniture kiosk. “Look at this,” she says. There’s an excitement in her voice as she brings up the interface. She looks up at him and her eyes are bright. “Want to do some shopping?”
The truth is Garrus doesn’t care for shopping much. But the last thing he wants to ruin Shepard’s mood. “What are you thinking?”
“I’ve never had an apartment before,” she says. “I’ve always lived in barracks or officer’s quarters. Glyph gave me way more money than I’ll ever need for the party. Maybe we could spend some of it on furniture.”
He slips his arm around her shoulder, reveling in the way she said we. It’s such an ordinary activity for a couple to do and for that reason alone, he can’t think of any better way to spend an afternoon. With the war, they may never get this chance again, the chance to set up an apartment together and make decisions about plates and silverware that most other couples take for granted. “Let’s look at couches,” he says. “There has to be a more turian friendly one.”
#
By the time they finished, Shepard’s bank account must have taken quite the hit. But the worker at the kiosk promised that everything would be ready for delivery tomorrow and even Garrus is willing to admit he can’t wait. Will be a heady feeling to watch the apartment transform from Anderson’s to theirs.
The hallway leading to the apartment is quiet and as Garrus glances out the windows to see the Strip, Shepard slips her hand into his. “You know,” she says slyly, giving his hand a squeeze, “we did just disagree on what sort of shelving to have installed…”
Garrus lets out a low chuckle and pushes Shepard up against the wall, not surprised in the least when she offers no resistance. He leans in close, with his mouth right next to her ear and whispers, “Would you say we… fought about it?”
He doesn’t even try to hold back a moan as her hands start caressing his waist. Even through his civvies, he can feel all ten of her fingers doing wicked things. “I like your way of thinking, Garrus,” she says with a smirk. “So go ahead and apologize already.”
For a moment, Garrus is affronted. This, he blames entirely on Shepard, having moved her hands under his shirt and doing that thing with biotics that he doesn’t quite understand, but doesn’t even care because it feels so damn good. “The vids, right,” Garrus says, nuzzling her neck. “Will you ever forgive me for having better taste than you?”
Shepard throws back her head and laughs, causing Garrus’ heart to clench. It’s so rare to see her like this these days, to see her smiling and laughing, and not full of anger. They’re both so flawed, yet somehow, together, those flaws seem to balance each other out, making a whole that doesn’t seem so dark.
“I forgive you,” she says teasingly, and Garrus forces himself to stop being maudlin, not when his plates are starting to spread and when Shepard is rolling her hips against his.
“Then I officially declare this fight over,” Garrus says, grabbing Shepard’s hand. “It is definitely time for some make-up sex.”
And as they start to run towards the apartment doors, Garrus is already planning their next fight in his head. It’ll probably involve dinner somehow. And then they can fight and make-up all over again. And again.
“don’t go where i can’t follow” in relation to shep & garrus hahaha i'm here to ruin everyone's feelings
Just remember, anon. You asked for this.
(This is quite different from my usual style of writing, but I had lots of fun with it.)
~~~~~
Since the spring of 2185, Sayn wants two things.
One, he wants control of Eclipse. Two, he wants to figure out the best way to make that bastard Archangel pay for killing his brother Jaroth.
And in the fall of 2186, in the span of two days, just forty-eight little hours, Commander Shepard hands him both.
Sayn will make sure Archangel regrets saying those words - I need you - surrounded by a handful of mercs, for the rest of his life.
~~~~~
The Reaper war is over.
Instead of being hailed a hero, Shepard is an easy target. She is the one that took too long to bring everyone to the table. She is the one that wasted time searching for banners and books and artifacts on planets already lost.
She is the one that made deals on the behalf of the Alliance that the brass said she had no right to make.
Like the one with Aria T’Loak.
Everyone said Aria would stab Shepard in the back as soon as she had the chance.
Hindsight is a bitch.
~~~~~
They are on Omega.
Garrus doesn’t want to be here. There are too many memories, too many ghosts. But as much as he doesn’t want to be here, he wants to be at Shepard’s six more.
Even with the mud flung at her on a daily basis, Shepard still wants what’s best for the galaxy. And what the galaxy needs is peace, something Shepard is determined achieve whether they want it or not.
They are on their way to a parlay - what Garrus considers to be a fancy word for trap - at Aria’s request. The Council is willing make concessions to Aria, if only so the fighting stops. Worlds are ravaged. Only half the relays are working and there’s not enough food to fill every belly.
When the first bullet hits Shepard in the shoulder, her cry keeps Garrus from hearing his omni-tool’s low tone beep, warning him a program has been installed without his knowledge.
~~~~~
Aria has lost control.
The Alliance doesn’t know because she doesn’t want them to know. But she sits on her couch, knowing she no longer has a hold on the mercs.
Her plan is in tatters because they’re obsessed with revenge. When the mercs had more important things to fight, like husks and harvesters, she managed to keep them in line. Now? With the galaxy crumbling and power available to anyone foolish and brave enough to snatch it up, Aria’s dream of turning the Terminus System into another Omega slips through her fingers, like water seeping through the cracks.
Damn mercs and their revenge plots.
Damn them all.
~~~~~
They fall into a familiar pattern.
Shepard picks up her SMG, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and starts to gather the mercs charging her. Garrus crouches in cover in the back, with the reassuring sound of the Black Widow reloading again and again and again.
Her tech armor is waiting, ready to detonate on Garrus’ trigger. They learned long ago that his view of the battlefield gave him a better idea when to set the armor off. So in her first act of trust after waking in a Cerberus lab, she gave Garrus her armor’s control.
Here on Omega, Shepard has five men around her, all ready to pounce. She tries to remember to breathe, because she never likes being boxed in. Just when she’s ready to release a warp, to give herself an escape route, she hears the familiar buzz from her armor, ready to explode and take these assholes with it.
She sees a flash of light and her skin is on fire.
She blacks out and hits the ground with a thud.
~~~~~
Shepard is burning.
Garrus allows himself two seconds of panic, wondering how her tech armor imploded instead of exploded. But that two seconds is enough for the tranquilizer dart to bury itself in his neck.
~~~~~
When she wakes, everything hurts.
She’s curled up in a ball and her fingers graze charred skin. Her armor is in the corner and Shepard wonders who took it off of her battered body.
A familiar thrum, one she only hears late at night when he’s asleep and she’s not, soothes her. He’s in the corner, standing up, his chin tucked into his cowl.
Shepard takes stock of the small dingy room - a prison cell most likely - to find any obvious escape routes. There are none.
Her stomach growls.
She is a biotic.
And she is starving.
~~~~~
A creak at the door catches their attention.
A meal slides through the small hole. Shepard pounces - she’s hungry, she’s so hungry - but realizes the food is not for her.
She tells him to eat, one of them needs their strength, after all, but she turns away as he does and tries not to listen as he chews.
Everything hurts. The tech armor ripped through her shields, through her actual armor, leaving charred burns on her shoulders and belly and across her breasts. No doctor has come to see her, even though Garrus yelled through the door for more than an hour that she’s feverish.
They have no omni-tools or weapons. They took Garrus’ visor. But they do have their armor. Garrus manages to fix the medi-gel dispenser on hers and that brings some relief. Her fever goes down but does not break.
And meal after meal arrives with no levo food in sight.
~~~~~
Sayn discovers he has no stomach for torture.
He’s an engineer; he kills at a distance and preferably, doesn’t have to kill at all, letting his drones and turrets do the dirty work for him.
She’s fading faster than he thought, but not fast enough. Sayn thought he’d enjoy every moment of her suffering because Archangel made it clear her suffering is his. But as he watches the vid screen of their surveillance, he just feels sorry for them both.
Archangel at least gave Jaroth a quick death.
A bullet between the eyes does that to a person.
~~~~~
He is going to lose her.
Garrus wants to keen at the unfairness of it all, that they could both live through the war, completely intact (almost intact, thinking of his new artificial hip) only to lose her now.
Six days have passed according to his clumsy tracking. It’s impossible to believe that they haven’t been found and yet… They haven’t been found. The Alliance sent Shepard to Omega. They know she is here. Unless this is their plan. Discredit Aria and make a martyr out of Shepard with one fell stroke.
He believes Hackett is ruthless enough to do that.
She doesn’t.
And because her fever is back, the medi-gel gone, and she hasn’t eaten in six days, Garrus tells her she’s right.
~~~~~
She can picture their child so clearly.
Shepard wants to tell Garrus about her. Starts to. But his subvocals sound so sad when she does she stops. Instead, she closes her eyes and pictures the gangly turian girl with brown eyes like hers but wearing the markings of Cipritine.
The child walks between them - one hand in each of theirs - on the beach. And Shepard isn’t able to hide her smile as Garus introduces their daughter to Mordin.
~~~~~
Her eyes rarely open now.
But each time they do, Garrus tells her he loves her. If Shepard is going to die in this Spirit-forsaken place, let her at least die knowing without doubt she is loved. He whispers of all those who care for her already waiting up at the bar and someday, he’ll be up there, too.
~~~~~
Eight days have passed.
The door hasn’t opened once.
Until now.
Garrus wants to pounce, take this opportunity to slip on the Archangel mask and damn the consequences. But Shepard is in his arms, sleeping. So instead he looks up and tries to glean as much information as he can.
A salarian stands in the doorway. Garrus can’t see his face in the shadow. But can see the man holds a pistol. And it only take a moment for Garrus to realize it’s pointing at him, and not Shepard.
He keeps his eyes open; he’s walked in death’s shadow too long for him to be anything other than a friend.
A shot rings out.
And the salarian falls.
~~~~~
Jimmy Vega takes Shepard from his arms.
His insignia says N3, and Garrus sees the difference it makes in him: he stands straighter and the mohawk is gone. As he places Shepard onto a stretcher, he shouts orders and the other Alliance soldiers follow without hesitation.
There is no doctor, only a paramedic and she works frantically, injecting Shepard with drugs. Thanks to Shepard, Garrus can read the woman’s face clearly and the news is not good.
Garrus does the only thing he can think of. He takes Shepard’s hand and begins to pray.
It worked for his father and sister, perhaps the Spirits would be generous enough again.
But then Shepard’s chest stops rising.
~~~~~
She is loved.
Of this she is sure.
Shepard walks into the nameless room and Bakara is there, surrounded by half a dozen fat krogan babies. Shepard’s heart clenches and she curses herself yet again for not saving the data from Maelon’s experiments. Maybe then Wiks could have saved Bakara’s life.
Thinking of the turian girl with the knobby knees and wrists, Shepard leans down to pick up one of the babies.
Bakara stops her and hands her a crystal instead. The weight is heavy in Shepard’s hand but she understands.
She is not ready to die in a cave.
~~~~~
The paramedic is rhythmically pounding Shepard’s chest.
Garrus grips Shepard’s hand, memorizing her face, preparing himself for the worst. He refuses to keen, not here, not in public. His cries will be for his ears alone.
But then the unexpected happens.
Shepard takes a breath.
Garrus drops to one knee, scared to let himself hope.
And continues to pray.
~~~~~
Shepard is tired.
She feels Garrus’ bare hand surrounding hers and turns her head. Her vison is blurry, but she she can still read the fear mixed with dreams in his eyes. He wore the same look on top of the Presidium.
Her voice is hoarse and exhausted as she says, “I’m ready for that beach, Vakarian. You?”
She needs no other answer as he brings her palm up to his mouthplates and lets his mandibles spread out in a smile.
