Chapter 154: Third Time’s the Charm

=== Summary ===
Mini-Arc: “Secrets’ Fallout” Continues
After almost three hours of mind-breaking work, Javik and Shepard find themselves only halfway through the Mount Vassla Prothean Archive. Though Shepard is losing her grip on exactly who she is, she forges ahead and discovers a memory three cycles removed from hers containing information about the Reapers. Like the Eden Prime vision, this memory contains a dire warning- and lots of information otherwise lost to time. By the time Shepard falls out of the iborihe, she is laughing hysterically and not quite in control of herself. Javik immediately calls an end to their excursion, and is intensely worried about Shepard due to her dissocating- her human brain wasn’t designed for this form of communication after all. Javik tells her that he is going to call Garrus as soon as they reach the surface- and Shepard’s feelings on this idea trend extremely negative, though she desperately wants his support.
When Garrus meets them a few minutes later, Shepard’s condition has not improved. As she stumbles, Garrus pulls her close to him in an attempt to help and support her and ends up dragged deep into the iborihe, switching from vision to vision, until he sees Shepard at the Crucible. Shepard shoves him away and limps slowly toward the Silent Watcher. Javik makes it utterly clear that he expects Garrus to help her, but doesn’t give any ideas on how.
Shepard gives Garrus no opening to talk about what happened- either on Kahje or between them, and by the next morning she sends him away, leaving Garrus struggling with what to do next. Finally it occurs to him to call his dad, where he lays out almost everything that happened between the two of them, but leaving the mind-control part out.
Aelianus draws parallels between Garrus and Shepard and himself and Evadne, and points out that while Garrus had desperately been trying to help Shepard, his help in fact had sabotaged her agency in her own recovery. Furthermore, he had accidently sent the message that he didn’t believe in her capabilities. The cherry on top being that Shepard was now unable to utilize a major stress management technique she relied on as a soldier- working out. He suggests that Garrus only help Shepard if she asks for help so she knows that he still thinks of her as capable and not to rob her of her wins, to find some other way to help her exert herself safely, and most importantly to apologize sincerely- without trying to lessen her apology with the wrongs she had done to him. That unpleasantness out of the way, the two turians change the subject to the elder Vakarian’s work.
=== Title Meaning ===
=== Easter Eggs ===
==== Discord Highlights ====
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