Time for Overcoming
I picked up two pieces for the @meficswap and this is the second of them. Rijal is the turian OC of @playfulclaws. She was a blast to write and I hope that I did her justice.
Also a big thanks to @thesecondsealwrites for reviewing the piece and helping me polish it out.
TW: Addiction and withdrawal.
“Garrus,” the Commander called softly as the others were leaving.
“Shepard?” he questioned as he turned to face her, admittedly more than curious as to why she’d stopped him from leaving the conference room with the rest of the crew. Certainly they’d already covered everything there was to discuss in their debriefing and he had more than enough work to keep himself busy for the next year.
“About Rijal…” Shepard trailed off as conflict washed over her face. She took a long, deep breath before regarding him frankly. “Look. Addiction isn’t easy to live with and withdrawal will be worse for her. It could kill her, I know, but there’s no way that we can allow contraband on board. I don’t want to have to force her hand; getting better should be a choice. Her choice. But--”
“You have to,” he cut her off. Like it or not, he knew the same thing she did. He had been struggling with the notion since Rij had shown up on Palaven shortly after he’d returned there himself. He wanted her in his life but even then, he had known that it wouldn’t be possible for her to share in it if she were still addicted to hallex.
He needed his family to accept her and for that, she needed to go clean, completely. Overcoming her addiction to hallex was an important first step. The family could love her if given the chance. Her intelligence, determination, and cunning would impress both his father and Solana, though hiding her criminal past would require some work. As would convincing the senior Vakarian that a barefaced mate would be acceptable.
As if that weren’t enough, he had to be ever mindful of who he was in the hierarchy now, or what would remain of it after they defeated the Reapers. And they would defeat them. The scrutiny placed on Garrus would extend to her and while he knew just how mentally tough she was, he didn’t believe that anyone could withstand the pressures they’d place on her as his mate.
Even if none of that mattered, the Normandy was about to play host to a litany of dignitaries and it couldn’t withstand the presence of illicit drugs like hallex. The ship, its crew, and its reputation needed to be squeaky-clean, as the humans were fond of saying.
“Garrus?” Shepard questioned, pulling him from his thoughts.
“It’s time,” he agreed.
Shepard nodded. “If she wants to remain on board with us,” with you, her pause seemed to imply, “She’ll have to quit, and do it cold-turkey.”
“Cold turkey? I don’t…” he tilted his head in question. He’d heard humans use the euphemism in the past but hardly understood it. She shook her head apologetically.
“Quit without winding down her ‘dosage’. It stops today or she leaves the Normandy when we reach the Citadel.” Garrus nodded in quiet response to that, wondering if she understood the unbidden quiver in his subharmonics.
“It won’t be easy, I know. But Dr. Chakwas is one of the best. She’ll help Rij. Make sure this goes smoothly.” Maybe she did understand, after all. Her tone was certainly meant to comfort and reassure him.
He nodded in agreement with her, but his voice still wavered. “She’ll understand and I know she’ll want this hindrance gone.”
Shepard nodded.
“She’ll do it,” he said, more for himself than for anything else. He couldn’t stand to lose her, especially not to this. Not while the Reapers were the reason he was losing everything else.
“She’s strong. She can do this,” he said firmly, nodding to Shepard. He received a comforting smile from her in response, and departed the conference room.
--- 2
Rijal paced the bay relentlessly. Back and forth, back and forth, running diagnostics from the Kodiak through her brain over and over. Willing it to give her one little hint as to how it could be modified and improved. If only she had hallex. It would streamline her thoughts or at the least help her to see things from a different angle. What was that human phrase? Think outside the box?
“Yes, it would help me think outside the box.”
Humans engineers were getting better all the time and this Lt. Cortez was quite talented, but he wasn’t turian and more importantly, he wasn’t her. If Rijal couldn’t get more out of that graceless flying box, no one could.
“Hallex. I need hallex,” she muttered to herself as she turned again, tracking back towards the elevator. They’d be on the Citadel within an hour or so. It wasn’t too early to reach out to her contacts and arrange a deal.
She was opening up the comm interface on her omni-tool when she heard the clear stride of a turian approaching. Looking up, she met Garrus’ eyes and smiled reflexively. That smile was immediately chased away by the harried look on his face. Her subhamornics fluttered, giving her away for a brief moment before she reigned them in with a quick clearing of her throat.
“What? Did the Alliance make that big a mess of the Thanix?” she teased.
He sighed and reached for her hands. His eyes pressed closed and it was his turn for a subharmonic flutter.
“Garrus… what is it?” she tried.
Another sigh and a long pause as he hesitated. He rubbed at her hands, thumbs drawing circles on the backs of them while his mandibles worked and his eyes remained fixed to her forehead.
“Garrus.” She squeezed his hands, hard, and forced him to meet her eyes.
“Spirits,” he whispered, barely audible. At last, though, he seemed willing to speak. “It’s about your…”
“Addiction,” she finished before he could waver further. “At least have the courage to call it what it is.”
He nodded. “Right. Addiction. About that. Back on Palaven, you said you thought it might be time to get help,” he tried carefully. A clear note of uncertainty sang through his subvocals.
“Not now,” she shook her head. “It’ll be another distraction that we can’t afford in the face of the Reapers.”
“We can’t afford the distraction of illicit drugs on the Normandy when it’s playing host to the turian Primarch, either,” he replied, displeased and stern. Decidedly not the Garrus she knew.
“I’ve kept it secret before. It’ll be no different now,” she promised, hoping to ease him back down into himself but she failed. His mandibles momentarily pressed in against his cheeks but he found the strength somewhere to still his expression.
“That was different. This isn’t a Cerberus crew; they aren’t trained to look the other way. And Shepard can’t ignore this if it’s brought to her attention,” he returned calmly.
“She’d what? She’d throw me in the brig? Did the Alliance even add a brig? Either way, I’d still be helpful there,” Rijal replied with a nonchalant shrug.
“No, Rij,” Garrus said. He sighed heavily, eyes briefly looking at the floor between them before they came back up to her. “You’ll have to leave the ship. I can’t go with you.”
“Wait--are you--is this an ultimatum?” she growled at him, ripping her hands away. He winced at the action. Good, he should hurt for coming to her with this now, after all the months they’d spent together and promises they’d made on Palaven. He had all the time in the world, then. Why had he waited so damn long?
“I love you. You know that. But this is war, spirits Rij, it’s the war and--”
“That’s the point! You’d destroy my effectiveness with this! The hallex helps me come up with unorthodox solutions, you know that! The Normandy would suffer for it. What’s more,” she snapped, an uncontrollable quiver rising in her subharmonics, “you’d walk away from me because a human says so.”
He shook his head and ran his hand over his fringe, eyes cast away from her furious glare. “No, Rijal. Not because my best friend says so but because she’s right. Don’t tell me that the hallex is what helps you. You know it’s not. You’re crafty with hallex, but you’re a genius without it. It doesn’t help you, it hinders you and ties you to whoever can give you your next fix. We can’t have Normandy crew members bound to the whims of drug dealers.”
“You never cared about that before,” she countered angrily. Not once had he chastised her for her choices. He’d never, once, been in a position to. He wasn’t better than her. Vigilante with a fancy name or no, he was still a criminal and the only reason he wasn’t dead or rotting in a prison right now was that he’d committed those crimes, those horrors, on Omega.
“You were never a very good turian,” Rijal snarled at him as she remembered his brutal path of revenge on the station. “Why should that change now?”
He looked up and met her eyes. For the first time since he’d been promoted, she saw the turian general he now was. Straight backed, towering over her, eyes stern and allowing for no argument. Impressive. Terrifying. Everything she didn’t want. Everything she’d been running from for so much of her life. When had he changed so dramatically and how had she missed it? How had she wound up with the very thing she sought so desperately to avoid? She couldn’t quell the fear that tingled to life in her gut as he spoke down at her.
“Public opinion is everything. Spectre authority or no, if the public were to discover that Shepard was harboring drug addicts, her credibility and that of everyone on this ship would be destroyed.”
“You’re a smart woman, Rijal Tythus. You know how crucial the Normandy and its crew are to winning this war,” he reasoned, his tone turned condescending.
“And you think I would endanger that? You think I’m that selfish?” she challenged, heartbreak exploding through her at a rate she couldn’t possibly slow.
His silent stare, laden in accusation, was answer enough. That was all she needed to bury her pain in fury. She snarled at Garrus, the sound angry, guttural, ripping through the entire range of her flanged voice as she shoved him aside, storming past him before he could reach out to her.
--- 3
The worst part about all of it? He was right. Totally, completely, absolutely, unquestionably, undeniably right.
She could say that she was doing this because she loved him, but that would be a lie. She could say that she was doing it for herself but that was partly a lie, too. The reality was that she loved the life she’d found here on the Normandy. Losing it would be worse than… Spirits, it would be worse than losing even Garrus. If she lost him, the crew of the Normandy would still be there for her but if she lost them, she’d be alone. Completely and utterly alone.
Until now, Rijal had been allowed to live that life because Shepard had looked the other way and welcomed her with open arms as she had all of the other criminals and misfits she’d adopted during her time with Cerberus. No one else had continued their habits of questionable activities after having met Shepard and she couldn’t either. Rij wasn’t just failing herself or Garrus or the Normandy’s crew if she allowed her addiction to continue and she inadvertently damaged the commander’s reputation. She would be failing Shepard herself and that was a thing no one could come back from.
So it was with that in the forefront of her mind that she marched through the med bay doors and regarded Dr. Chakwas.
“I need to stop using hallex,” she blurted before it was too late and her addiction claimed her resolve.
The silver-haired human nodded as she turned in her chair to look up at Rijal. “I’m glad you’ve decided to do it now.”
“Not the answer I was expecting,” Rijal sputtered an admission as she reached up to scratch at the side of her head.
Chakwas’ eyebrow raised in an amused smile. “What did you expect?”
Rij shrugged and answered her with silence. To that, the doctor chuckled sweetly and indicated for Rijal to pull over a chair.
“Better now than when it’s impossible to get the substance and we have no options should your dependency prove greater than I thought,” she explained. “Have a seat and I will walk you through the process. This won’t be easy but you know that.” Rij nodded and settled in before Dr. Chakwas’ computer.
--
A dizzying and exhausting hour later, Rijal had her questions answered, though she was hardly satisfied. She supposed that was how this would have to be.
Not easy? That had to have been a joke; her withdrawal could damn well kill her. The doctor had perhaps been too explicit about that.
“Just covering her bases,” she muttered to herself as Dr. Chakwas rummaged through the cabinetry in search of one medication or other.
The withdrawal would start easily enough, perhaps twenty-four to forty-eight hours before it would begin to set in in earnest. However, she’d be confined to the med bay until then. While it was infuriating, she understood.
She was an addict and had done it to herself. Addicts couldn’t be trusted. They were exceptionally gifted at hiding stashes of their particular vice in every available nook and cranny and until the Reapers had attacked, Rijal had been no different. Had the assault not begun in so swiftly, she’d have been prepared and as Dr. Chakwas no doubt suspected, would have had hallex in every hidden compartment she could find.
With that in mind, she believed that she could tolerate confinement. She had plenty of work to keep her busy and Dr. Chakwas had agreed to allowing her to play her own music. EDI, as always, was a wonderful sounding board and completely accessible in the med bay. There was a treadmill for when she needed to be active, as the doctor had assured her would aid with the anxiety when that began to set in.
Until her body began to shut down as a result of the anxiety and the overworking she’d no doubt do to herself as she tried to distract herself from the cravings with any task that she could dig up. Already imagining her body being too weak to simply walk on a treadmill made her dread this. Never mind the lack of appetite, possible paranoia, fever, hallucinogenic dreams, senility, inability of her body to control its temperature, sudden and terrifying weight loss, and her personal favorite: potential drooling and soiling of oneself.
Yes. This was going to be lovely.
“You can do this, Tythus,” she growled in resolve.
--- 5
For once, Garrus was grateful for the sterile smells of the med bay; they hid what he knew would be a stench not far away from that of death. He’d been exposed to more than enough of that scent today. He didn’t need it here, too.
Dr. Chakwas sat quietly at her desk and gave him a polite smile as he entered. “She hasn’t been awake yet today,” she informed gently.
He nodded and carried on to the stool placed at Rijal’s bedside. What else could he do? What could he say? They all knew that her withdrawal could be this bad, that there was a chance she wouldn’t survive, no matter how gifted the physician attending her.
Garrus’d left his visor behind before coming here, thinking its absence would help him relax but he didn’t need it to see the pallor evident in the softer patches of skin on her head and neck, to see how quickly her body had shed what little spare fat she’d had, to see atrophied muscles and a dried-out carapace which was preparing to molt for the third time too many since departing from Menae, or to hear the rough, shaking breaths that wheezed in and out through her open mouth, underpinned by a faint keening in her subharmonics.
Her pain was evident in mandibles pressed tightly to the sides of her face, in the tenseness of her body that still read as clearly as the Citadel’s neon signs despite the pile of blankets covering her. What little he knew of medicine indicated that she should be shivering. Whether the absence of the behavior was a good sign or a bad one was a question he wasn’t sure he desired an answer to.
And if he did actually want to know her vitals and have reality driven that much harder into him, all he need do was glance at the panel beside her bed. Pulse irregular at best. Her temperature was too low, which explained the unusually warm ambient temperature in the room and piles of thick blankets covering the small woman. He wished to take her hand but that would require digging it out of what he could only pray was a cocoon of beneficial warmth.
Instead, he carefully laid his hand against the side of her face. The skin lacked even the smallest hint of warmth. It was dry and tight, as if it might crack open if he flexed his fingers too tightly over it.
“Oh Rij, why didn’t you tell me?” he sighed at her. “I could have helped. I could have been here with you…”
“You couldn’t have,” Dr. Chakwas replied gently as she approached the bedside, a fresh bag of iv fluids in hand. “You were needed elsewhere.”
He grunted in protest but there was little to say. The doctor was right. Shepard and his Primarch both needed him. Shepard for his aim and Victus for his friendship with Wrex. Madness. The whole thing was madness.
“How is she?” he asked, the meek tone of his voice surprising him and giving away far more than he’d wished it to.
“She’s at the bottom,” Chakwas told him, her voice too flat to read and without the aid of subharmonics, he was unable to draw anything from it. She pressed a few buttons and changed the bag of fluids. “We’ll know her fate soon enough.”
The doctor stepped around Garrus and made a few notes on her omni-tool while examining Rijal’s vitals. Absently, she patted him on the shoulder. “She’s about where I’d expected her to be. If she continues on like this, she will be fine, Garrus.”
“Why doesn’t that feel like comfort?” he asked the empty air between he and Rij.
“Give it a few days. Her eyes will open,” the doctor promised before giving his shoulder a firm squeeze and retreating to her desk.
“...and if they don’t?” he asked, turning to look back at her over his shoulder.
“They will.” Her tone allowed no room for argument, a tone even Shepard and Wrex had known not to challenge. Garrus may not believe her right now as his eyes rolled over Rijal and the myriad dark thoughts clouded his mind, but he knew when not to question the doctor’s authority. If Dr. Karin Chakwas said her eyes were going to open again, they would damn well open again.
“Come on, Tythus. You can do this,” he told Rij, the most firm his voice had sounded since the news had reached him two days ago. “I have so much I need to tell you. But you don’t get to hear until you’re awake.”
--- 6
“You were right,” she sputtered. She wasn’t certain that she had actually formed words but watching all of the tension run from Garrus was all the indication she actually needed.
He said nothing, apparently at a loss for words.
“Come on now, Vakarian, it wasn’t that bad,” she taunted, her voice marginally stronger. He shook his head and his subharmonics fluttered. She reached for him and grunted when she found her arm barely able to rise off of the bed. “Alright. Maybe it was.”
Garrus snorted at that and took her hand in both of his, squeezing it so gently she wondered if they’d reformed her of glass.
“Let’s just say you got enough sleep for the both of us,” he finally managed.
“Are you trying to make a joke?” she asked him.
“How about we pretend that didn’t happen?” he asked instead.
She nodded and smiled up at him. “I’m still mad at you and we have a lot to talk about, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“I know. I’m sorry I had to take such a hard line with you,” he apologized.
“You’re not,” she levelled at him. It wasn’t an angry accusation, just an observation. The man was probably proud of himself for taking a stand in an area where he’d allowed her to walk all over him in the past.
“I’m sorry that I had to hurt you,” Garrus replied instead.
“That’s better,” she returned. “I’ll get over it. Eventually.”
He snorted. “That’s fair.”
“I think so,” she grinned. “Now, when can I get out of this bed?” She asked him. Rijal still wanted to be mad so as not to show him just how great a weakness he was for her, but right now, she was simply happy to be alive and happy to have him at her side. She needed time to let who he was sink in but they could sort that out later.
Garrus chuckled. His face held nothing but amusement and warmth on its features. “Patience, Tythus.”
“I can be patient,” she huffed. He laughed again.
“You sure about that?” Rijal nodded in response and Garrus rolled his eyes. “Well then. You know that omni-tool you’ve been eyeing for most of the year? Prove me wrong and it’s yours.”
To that, she grinned. Rijal was never one to turn down a challenge. Nor was she one to ever fall short of one. No, she’d be out of that bed in record time, winning over the Normandy’s new crew in even less time.