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It took longer than anyone expected. Somehow everyone - Shepard’s mother, Garrus’s parents and sister, Wrex and Bakara, Tali, everyone - seemed to think that as soon as the Reapers were gone, Shepard and Garrus would drop their guns, grab the first shuttle to some quiet planet somewhere, buy a house on a beach and... what?
“It’s not like we can even have kids together,” Shepard griped to Liara as she leaned over the Shadow Broker’s shoulder, watching info feeds as they zipped by. Liara had really grown into her role - her face hardly seemed to react to the cascades of data that zipped by her, as if her fingers were moving, filing and directing the information as necessary, without any input from her conscious mind.
“I know you can’t, at least not naturally,” Liara said, her expression calm and thoughtful. “Although you could ask around; the Salarians do some great things with gene-splicing, and they owe you both as much as the rest of the universe. I’m sure they’d be happy to look into the possibility.”
“We’re not even made of the same proteins.”
The young woman shrugged. “I’m not a biologist, but... well, that never stopped one of my people from reproducing with a turian. I don’t see why a little bio-technology and genetics work couldn’t solve the problem for you, too.”
“Are you transitioning, Liara? You’ve never seemed at all interested in kids before...”
That won a smile, at least. “I’m still not. Don’t worry, I’ve got at least a century before I start looking to settle down and start a family. But... well...”
Shepard sighed, leaning back against the lab table next to the computer array. “You can say it. It’s okay. I know I don’t have as much time as you do. And neither does Garrus. But that doesn’t mean we’re ready yet. Now that we’ve got our lives back, neither of us is ready yet to turn all of that on its head again.”
Liara understood. So did Shepard’s mother, though she seemed disappointed. Garrus’s parents acted about the same, though Shepard couldn’t shake the feeling that Solana thought her big brother might be better off doing the proper thing and settling down with another turian and having a baby, and Tatius probably agreed with her when his wife wasn’t glaring full-on cannons at him to keep him from scolding their son. Wrex groused about how he supposed not everyone was building up their species from the edge of extinction, but damned if Shepard wasn’t sure Bakara had winked at her while he said it, so that was probably fine. Tali was just so damned happy with her own new life, on her planet, with her new love and without her all-enclosing suit, that she could only vaguely grasp the concept that Shepard didn’t want the same.
“Don’t you miss wind?” she asked. “Don’t you want earth and stone under your feet instead of metal? Rain and sunlight on your face? And a baby... Shepard, these things are not to be discarded lightly. I would never presume to tell you what to do! But...”
“We’re thinking about it, Tali. I promise. But we’ll do it in our own time, and in our own way.”
Tali laughed a little at that. “When do you not? Forgive me, Shepard. I only want you to be as happy as I am. And Garrus, you too, of course.”
It took a second for the full meaning of this to hit Shepard. “Do you mean...?”
Tali’s grin was even brighter than the sun she luxuriated under. “Kal’reegar and I just found out. It will be a while before she is born. But, Shepard, she will be born here, on Rannoch, on the homeworld! One of the first quarians to be born here in a hundred generations. It’s wonderful.”
Shepard thought of her own childhood on her mother’s ship. Tali had always understood that Shepard grew up that way, and yet treated it with a kind of delicate sympathy, as if it was as much a sorrow to Shepard to have been born on a ship as it was to her. She didn’t quite understand, Shepard thought, that for a human child to be born on a ship wasn’t a reminder of exile as it was to a quarian. “I’m happy for you, Tali. I really am. But... it’s different for me. And for Garrus, too.”
And that was how it went, for a few weeks. Tali and Kal launched into preparations for their, Wrex and Bakara were on the way to having a whole passel of them, and Shepard and Garrus... went on as they always had. New crew-members came and went, and visits were made to the ones who had left and settled planetside. There were always crises, always enemies to track and fight and outsmart, and though nothing quite came to the level of the Reapers it was still plenty to keep their adrenaline pumping. And then one day Garrus was chatting with Primarch Victus, and when he got off the communication channel he had a strange, thoughtful expression that Shepard had never seen before.
She dropped onto the sofa next to him, one hand casually brushing the back of his gloved talon. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m better at reading your expressions than that, Garrus. Something Victus said upset you - your mandibles are pulled so tight you can hardly talk around them. What’s up? Trouble on Palaven?”
“Not the kind we can fix by shooting,” Garrus admitted. “Which is too damned bad, since that’s one kind of solution turians are good at.”
“What is it, then?”
“Well...” His mandibles twitched, restless, as he tried to think through the right way to express the problem. “You know turians are pretty family-oriented. That it matters a lot what family line you’re from. Being Vakarian is more important to me than being a Shepard is to you. Apart from the fact that I actually use my personal name,” he added with a ghost of his usual humor.
“It’s not my fault my mother named me after my great-aunt,” Shepard pointed out with a playfully exaggerated grimace. “But yeah, I know all that. I get that it’s important to you, that it’s more than a name. Bloodlines and family history mean a lot to turians.” She thought for a moment, then frowned. “Is this about memorizing the Vakarian family history? Because I said I was willing to do that, but then Solana got all angry and started saying how it didn’t even matter because it wasn’t like I was a turian or like we could have children together to pass the story on to, and... frankly, I figured we were better off not bringing it up again.”
“No, no. No, it’s not about that.” Garrus stood up from the couch and started pacing the length of the room, as if he was looking for a perimeter to guard or something. “It’s just that... Solana’s not the only one who thinks like that. I never really thought about it before, but... we’ve got a lot of orphans on Palaven, it turns out. And Victus is having a really hard time finding families for them. It’s not a problem with the older kids, there are places where they can grow up communally until they’re old enough to join the army, and... we’re a communal kind of culture anyway, y’know? We like to be close together. It doesn’t bother us not having private space like it does humans. But... there are kids who are really young, too. It’s one thing to spend four or five years in one of those youth homes until they’re moved into military training. But some kids are spending ten, even fifteen years like that. And a lot of those ones often don’t even have distant family who’ll claim them and give them a name.” His usually rich, multi-tonal voice sounded hollow, and his mandibles pressed flat against his face, the tense and fearful expression that Shepard didn’t usually see on Garrus outside of a really rough battle. “They don’t belong to anybody. Not even enough for a name.”
“Hey.” Shepard shifted, climbing onto Garrus’s lap so that she stradded his thin waist, and leaned her forehead against his. He sighed, the tense mandibles flaring a little bit, and pressed back against her touch, nuzzling her. “Sounds like the primarch is doing what he can for these kids. Is there anything we can do to help?”
“I... I don’t know. You said once...” He glanced away, and then back, his blue eyes bright and uncertain as a flame in the wind. “I made a joke about trying to have kids, one time, and you... said that we might think about adoption. That it might be a better choice for us. How, uh... how serious were you about that?”
Shepard sat back, leaning against the solid gloved talons that supported her waist as she thought. “I wasn’t really thinking about it seriously at the time. But if you want to... yeah. I don’t see any reason we couldn’t be serious, if that’s what you want.”
“And if it was a turian instead of a human child...”
“Hell, Garrus, do you really think that would matter to me? That it would change my mind?” Her fingers stroked the smooth, hard chitin of his cheekplate, back to the soft, unprotected skin behind the plate. “I can’t imagine any reason I couldn’t love a turian child just as much as a human one. And, frankly, there’s been no trouble finding human kids homes since the Reaper War. All the colonies and station-based personnel have rallied to make sure that isn’t a problem. If that’s not the case with turians...”
A blue blush rose over Garrus’s exposed skin. “You make it sound like we don’t care. We do. It’s just...” He made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. “We’re not good at this kind of thing. It’s shameful. But the change... it takes time.”
“Garrus. I get it.” Shepard leaned her forehead on his again. “We’re not without our flaws, either. Nobody is. There is one thing, though... will the turian government give a child to a turian-human couple? I know there’s no complaint about asari-turian couplings, but... humans are kind of different for your people.”
“And turians are for yours,” he growled softly.
It was true, of course - they’d run into plenty of bad feeling and prejudice on both sides of the divide in the time they’d been together. “I’m not trying to make this about one of us being better than the other, Garrus. I’m just asking.”
“I know.” He sighed, consciously loosening the again-tightened mandibles that revealed the defensive anger he’d been feeling. “I don’t think there’ll be trouble. People will talk... my father might even be one of them. Solana, too. As much as I love her... But for practical purposes? You’re Captain Shepard, the one who defeated the Reapers for all the galaxy. And I,” he added with a proud flaring of his mandibles, “am one of the primarch’s closest friends and advisors, and your executive officer. I think we can manage to convince the people in charge that we’re worthy. And if we can’t, I’m pretty sure Victus can. And will,” he added, blushing again. “I, uh, think he mentioned all of this precisely because he hoped it would make us think of taking this on ourselves. He’s mentioned before that it’s a shame we can’t have children of our own, and that any child raised by the two of us would be an asset to the Hierarchy.”
“Manipulative old devil.” Shepard laughed softly.
“Yeah.” Garrus’s voice was fond, though. “He’s got a lot of concern for the kids left behind by the war. Probably a little because of...” He gestured vaguely.
“Because of Tarquin?”
Garrus inclined his head in restrained agreement. “It was a good death. His son will be remembered in the histories for as long as the turian race persists, and he’ll be honored for what he did. But Adrien’s the last of his line, and without an heir...” Garrus shrugged, but the tightness in his face-plates belied the casual gesture. “There won’t be another Victus. Ever.”
“Couldn’t he adopt, like he wants us to do?”
Garrus shook his head. “His wife died, too. Border skirmish, it wasn’t even during the war. A stupid accident, and a terrible end for a great woman. Adrien refuses to consider raising another child alone.”
Shepard knew better than to suggest remarriage. The turians were almost ruthlessly practical in a lot of matters, but the traditionalists among them regarded remarriage with the same horror that most humans reserved for adultery, or even incest, and no one was more traditional in his personal practices than Adrien Victus. Garrus himself, rebel though he was, refused to countenance the idea, and had more than once quietly assured Shepard that while he didn’t hold her to the same ideal, he considered himself bound to her as long as he lived, even if by some mischance he outlived her. To do otherwise would shame both her memory and his own honor. Primarch Victus apparently felt the same. “Seems almost like he’s taken you as a second son,” she suggested gently.
Garrus blinked at her, shocked, then shook his head emphatically. “No. That’s not something a turian would ever say, Shepard. I have a father. Adrien had a son. It would be shameful to both my father and to Tarquin’s memory to suggest that either of us could replace one of those for the other. I know humans don’t think like that, but... don’t ever mention something like that where another turian could hear. Especially not Adrien. He’d be humiliated if he thought I’d given you that impression.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it as an insult to either of you.”
“I know.” Garrus pressed his forehead to hers. “But... if we’re going to raise a turian child together...”
“It’s the kind of thing I should know. I get it.”
Even with the decision made, it wasn’t a fast process. The turians were quicker with their bureaucracy than humans, Shepard had to grant them that much - they loved neatness and organization more than they loved red tape, and their governmental systems were all as spare and straightforward as their chain of command. Even with that in mind, though, there was a lot to do, a lot of people to convince that they knew what they were doing. Primarch Victus did what he could to smooth the way for them, though, and it wasn’t long before they were summoned to meet the child that those charged with the care of Palaven’s orphans considered the best fit for them. Shepard hardly knew what to expect when they went to the orphanage, but, like all the buildings she’d seen on Palaven, it was more comfortable inside than its rough exterior would have indicated, and the children they saw as they were led through the halls looked, at least to Shepard’s untrained eye, to be healthy and well-cared-for. Garrus’s bright eyes followed them everywhere, though, and there was a sorrow and tightness in his face that spoke eloquently of how he felt seeing so many children without families.
“The youngest children we have are kept here,” the attendant told them as he pushed open a heavy door into a kind of nursery. As his back was turned, Shepard took the opportunity to touch Garrus’ arm. He nuzzled the side of her face briefly, then took a deep breath, and together they followed the attendant.
The nursery was warmer than the outer room, and a little more humid. The lights were warm and comfortable, not too bright, and little rounded cradles like nests surrounded the center of the room. The attendant walked up to one, and carefully lifted out a turian infant so small that Shepard couldn’t imagine how it had lived if its parents had died. Despite jokes and nasty remarks that had been passed around among human marines back during the war, she knew damned well turians gave birth to live young, no eggs involved. And from everything she’d seen of their culture, she couldn’t imagine even the most traumatized turian parent giving up a child willingly. Whatever had happened to this child’s parents, it must have been tragic.
The infant wriggled slightly as the attendant shifted it in his arms, his long, wicked talons cupping the little body with immense care. “Would you like to hold him?”
Fear unlike anything she’d ever felt before twisted in Shepard’s guts. “I... wouldn’t really know how...”
“It’s not difficult,” the attendant assured her, moving close and holding the baby out despite her protest. “We’re not as delicate as we look, even as infants. Anyway, you’ll have to learn if you want to consider adopting him. Here - hold out your arms.” With a confidence Shepard couldn’t even have pretended to, the attendant shifted the small child into one arm so that he could arrange Shepard’s into the right position, and then carefully transferred the baby into her grasp. It was lighter even than it looked, she thought, and its armor plates had a wonderful pearly sheen to them, seen this close. Shepard found herself wishing suddenly that she didn’t have her gloves on, so that she could touch the smooth little plates on the child’s forehead.
Garrus seemed to have the same thought, and without a baby turian limiting his movement, he was able to follow through on it. He took off his gloves and - carefully, mindful of his blunted talons - stroked the back of one finger across the child’s still-soft armor.
Shepard would have guessed, after three years with Garrus, that she knew the full range of sounds that a turian could make. She would have sworn she’d heard every tone, growl, and purr, every variation in harmonic from boredom to ecstasy to agony. But the closest she’d ever heard to the sound the child made when Garrus stroked him was the memory of pigeons cooing outside Alliance headquarters in Vancouver before the war. She looked up at Garrus, ready to question him about the sound... but the look on his face shut her up completely. He’d never looked so enthralled.
Unwilling to break whatever primal spell the baby had cast on Garrus, Shepard looked back to the child, whose eyes opened sleepily, regarding both of them with an expression that was strangely peaceful for a little scrap of life that had already seen tragedy. The eyes themselves were bright blue, only a shade or two lighter than Garrus’s.
What the hell, Shepard thought. I already fell in love with one turian. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that I’d fall for another.
It wasn’t as easy as that, of course. There was paperwork - oh, god, was there ever, to the extent that Shepard made vain oaths in her mind that she’d never complain about Alliance bureaucracy again, but she thought it was still not as bad as the hoops that they would’ve had to jump through for an adoption back on Earth. Victus helped, once again, and, to Shepard’s immense surprise, so did Tatius Vakarian. Even Garrus seemed shocked to discover that his father would put a little bit of his considerable personal influence behind helping his son and his unofficial daughter-in-law adopt a child. It helped, too, to be famous war heroes, particularly on a planet where military service was highly prized. And it also helped that the turians were a culture in whom service and honor were so deeply ingrained that the idea of adopting a child for less than the proper reasons was regarded not as an unfortunate occasional truth of the universe but as a horror that could hardly be imagined.
They learned the baby’s history - how his father had been part of a taskforce sent to help the krogan rebuilding projects and had fallen prey to one of the many vicious natural predators on that rough and difficult planet, and how his mother had given birth to their child and then, apparently weakened from the pregnancy, succumbed to a virus she’d caught while serving on Rannoch some time prior. Six months on, the child they both left behind was small for his age, a little sickly, a bit delicate, but, according to both the doctors and the caretakers who had watched him, tenacious.
“Stubborn and bull-headed determination in the face of impossible odds?” Garrus shook his head. “Sounds like he’ll fit right in.”
Even with their influence and friends in high places, it took more than a week to get the adoption process pushed through. Shepard had to send back to the Normandy for more levo-protein food so that she could stay on the planet. During the day, they spent most of their time at the orphanage, talking with the staff and playing with the little boy Shepard was desperately trying not to think of as theirs, just yet. After a few days they noticed he was fussier than he’d initially seemed when they arrived - even the orderly who escorted them in the nursery commented on it.
“It’s strange,” the young turian woman commented as she picked up the squalling child from his soft crib. “He was always so quiet before, I can’t imagine what’s happened...”
She trailed off as the little boy’s crying quieted instantly upon his being settled in Garrus’s arms.
“Oh.” The orderly blinked owlishly, and looked between them. “I... guess that’s what happened, then. It seems he’s attached to you.” The soft, rhythmic cooing that Shepard was learning to associate with a happy turian infant rolled out of the tiny body nestled against Garrus’s armor. “Well, then.”
At night, they stayed with Garrus’s family, and Shepard didn’t think she was the only one who was surprised by how generous the other Vakarians were with their limited space. Late one night, several days into the process, Shepard lay on her back staring at the ceiling of Solana’s room, which she’d relinquished to her big brother and his wife, setting up a cot for herself in the living room.
“Garrus?”
The warm body curled on its side next to her made a soft noise of confusion, then arms tightened around her waist. “Hmm?”
“Are you... totally sure this is what you want? The baby, I mean. We could... still back out, if we change our minds.”
A long silence. When he spoke at last, the hazy sound of sleep was utterly gone from his voice. “Is that what you want to do, Shepard?”
“I... I don’t know. It’s a hell of a thing to think about. Us. Parents.”
“If you don’t want--”
She turned in his arms and stopped him with a hand on his cheek, her fingers tracing the pattern of his scars. “I’m not saying I don’t want it. I’m just... I just want to be sure.”
“Mm. I know what you mean.”
Shepard felt weirdly relieved at the nervous way his mandibles twitched, and the uncomfortable rumble in his voice. “You’re worried, too.”
“I’d be a fool not to be. We both would. On Earth, you said we’d be at a probable disadvantage in the adoption process because of our lifestyle - because we’re soldiers. No turian would think of making that count against us, but there are ways in which...” He trailed off and shook his head. “The poor thing’s already been abandoned once. And what about raising a kid on the Normandy? We’d talked about retiring, but...”
“I’m not sure I can leave the Normandy just yet,” Shepard admitted, nodding. “That’s not saying we can’t have a kid with us, though. I grew up on a ship like the Normandy. Well...” She thought of the Normandy’s more unusual missions and crewmembers, and of its significantly less than standard history. “Not exactly like the Normandy. But on a ship, anyway.”
“And if there’s one thing the Reapers taught all of us, it’s that no place is totally safe.” Garrus growled softly at the memories. “So... you think it would be a good idea?”
Hannah Shepard’s ship had been different, but really, the worst thing that had differentiated life on that ship from life aboard the Normandy was the trouble the Normandy and her crew tended to get into... and that, Shepard thought, was something she could control. The Normandy didn’t have to be the ship that ran at danger all the time. She didn’t have to be the human who fixed every problem. A strange, unfamiliar feeling of relief washed over her as, for probably the first time in years, she realized that it was possible to let someone else take the big jobs for a while. Just for a while. Maybe they woudn’t have that tropical retirement that she and Garrus had joked about, but they could give a shot at learning to relax a little and dial back on the dangerous missions and heading off dauntless into disaster. Because, honestly, it had grown harder and harder over the past days to hand the infant back to the attendant at the end of their visits.
“A good idea.... Honestly? No. But,” she added, before his expression could close off completely, “when has that stopped you and I from doing anything?”
The name in the little boy’s orphanage records was essentially the turian version of ‘John Doe,’ as Shepard understood it. Garrus had snorted the first time he’d heard the name - it wasn’t flattering, carrying implications of being without family, without clan, without a place in the world. Untethered and unconnected. Sympathetic as she was to names that weren’t terribly likeable - she had, after all, spent the last twelve years or so threatening the life of anyone who so much as thought of calling her ‘Jane’ - Shepard agreed with Garrus that it needed to be changed immediately. He wasn’t anonymous. He wasn’t unloved and without a place, not anymore. It didn’t take long to come up with a viable alternative, either.
“Tarquin Vakarian,” Garrus intoned as he took the child in his arms. “I like the sound of that. Don’t you, little one? Do you like it?”
The baby’s bright blue eyes glimmered up at Garrus, and one tiny hand reached out, trying ineffectually to catch the claw that waved teasingly in front of his face.
“We’ll tell you someday about the man you’re named for,” Garrus continued as he allowed his finger to be caught. Little Tarquin clasped at the talon, cooing, his tiny mandibles flaring in infant joy. “He was the son of a great leader, and a hero who died for peace, and to save our people’s honor. He died young, and he should have lived much longer. Now, maybe, he can live again through you.”
After the choice of the name, the only thing left to solidify the adoption in the eyes of turian society was to see the name written in the family register, and, while she had worried a lot about how that would go over, there once again Garrus’s family surprised the hell out of Shepard. With what Garrus had said about the dubious status of adoptions in turian society, she’d fully expected that, even though they’d shown some signs of accepting the situation, the family Vakarian would be hesitant to fully embrace the tiny stranger their son wanted to bring into their midst. Instead, on the day they took baby Tarquin from the orphanage at last and went to the city’s records hall with him wrapped in a soft, fluffy blanket, they were greeted at the top of the steps by a group of about fifteen turians who all wore the same blue markings that Garrus carried, from children as tall as Shepard’s knee to a few old turians whose armor was cracked and dull and covered in scars. His mother, Aquila, stepped out of the crowd.
“Garrus Vakarian, my son,” she intoned in such a serious voice that for a moment Shepard was sure they were about to be rejected and told that no stranger would ever be written into the Vakarian family archive. Then she turned to Shepard. “Jane Shepard.”
“Shepard-Vakarian,” Shepard corrected. Might as well be hanged for a goat as a sheep, she told herself, straightening as if under military examination.
“Of course.” Aquila’s mandibles flashed wider, the turian equivalent of a smile. “My daughter.” A murmur went up among the assembled Vakarians, but after a pause it seemed no one felt sure enough of their position to challenge Aquila’s statement. “My son brought you into this family, and tells me you have worn our markings in the past, though you were not born of our people. Today, will you wear them again?”
Shepard glanced at Garrus, and he turned them so that he could speak low in her ear without anyone else hearing. “It’s your decision. My mother is offering you full membership in our family. If you accept the markings today, you’ll be as much a Vakarian as I am.”
“Did you know this would happen?” Shepard hissed.
“No. I didn’t think...” He hesitated, awkward. “We’d talked about it, once, but I didn’t really think she could convince the rest of the family to accept it.”
“Looks like you underestimated her...” Butterflies in her stomach, Shepard turned back to the gathered family, and met Aquila’s bright grey eyes. “If you’ll allow it, I would be proud to to wear the Vakarian family markings. I can’t wear them always - my skin won’t let me keep them on all the time. But if it’s enough for you, I’ll wear them whenever I’m here on Palaven.”
“If she won’t wear them all the time, they’re just a mask she can take on and off whenever she likes,” someone shouted from the back of the crowd. “That’s not right!”
“Shut up, Celsus,” an unexpectedly sharp voice retorted, and the crowd parted around Solana Vakarian, glaring up at a tall male turian. “That’s my brother’s wife you’re insulting. It’s not like she wants to take off our markings. Her skin won’t hold them like ours.”
“Because she’s soft!”
Without the slightest hesitation, Solana struck her taller relative a sharp blow across his cheek. “She defeated the Reapers, Celsus. You’d be dead if it weren’t for her - we all would. And she’s my sister, now. If you want to fight her, you fight me, too. And either one of us could take you,” she added with a wild light in her eyes. “You don’t want to fight both at once.”
“It’d be three on one, anyway,” Garrus added in the casual tone that was always his most dangerous. “Drop it, cousin. Shepard’s my wife, whether you like it or not. That much isn’t at question today.”
“No. It is not.” The deep voice of Tatius Vakarian drew everyone’s attention, and even the rebellious Celsus straightened his back and tensed under the inspector’s solemn gaze. “I stand with my wife and children on this matter, and it has already been discussed and decided. Celsus, you should remember that you are here to witness, not to choose.”
Celsus shrank back at last, and Aquila accepted the familiar little jar of dark blue paint and brush from a bent old matriarch, and, with swift and economical strokes, painted the family markings on her daughter-in-law’s smooth human skin. Then she dipped the brush again, and handed both brush and jar to her son. “Under all the eyes of the living family Vakarian, Garrus, do you assert this child to be yours, and therefore ours?”
Garrus held himself tall, his mandibles flaring proudly. “I do.”
“What is his name?”
“Tarquin Vakarian.”
Next to his wife, Shepard saw Tatius nod slowly, accepting and understanding. Aquila only inclined her head in acknowledgement, as if she had known all along that would be the child’s name. Maybe she had, Shepard realized - she’d seen Garrus in hushed conference with his mother the night before, and had wondered what they might have been discussing. “Then give him our mark, so that all who see him will know he is ours, and that he represents the family Vakarian wherever he goes. His honor will be our honor, and his shame, if it come, our shame.”
Garrus painted the tiny child’s face with a steady hand, the miniature version of his own markings standing out starkly against the smooth, pearly-grey skin and chitin of the child’s face, and then handed the paint and brush back to his mother. He took a deep breath before addressing the assembled group, holding up Tarquin so everyone could see the little boy’s face. “Look at this child, and recognize him. He is the son of our family.” Garrus’s voice shook a little, and his mandibles trembled with emotion before he continued. “Tarquin Vakarian, son of Garrus Vakarian and Jane Shepard-Vakarian, this is your family.”
“Sorry about using your first name,” he murmured to Shepard as the family filed by, each person taking a close look at the baby’s face as they did. “It’s a formality thing. They all know humans have two names just like we do, and if I’d tried to use just one of yours in a situation like this, some trouble-maker like Celsus might’ve tried to call foul.”
“It’s okay. Just so long as your family knows they can’t call me Jane. That’s one thing I’m not willing to accept from anybody but the mother who raised me.”
Garrus laughed softly. “I’ll make sure they know.”
After the ritual on the steps, the bit inside the records-hall was surprisingly lacking in ceremony. They waited in line with the family around them, all chatting amicably about whatever daily matters came to their mind, and then signed both their names to the ledger along with Tarquin’s. Aquila and Tatius signed as well, and only after the fact did Shepard realize that the records-keeper already knew Garrus and didn’t have any need of his parents’ vouching for him - they’d been signing their names as witnesses to their acceptance of Shepard herself as part of the family, as well as Tarquin. “You’re a Vakarian, now. In law as well as practice,” Garrus explained, pressing his forehead lightly against hers.
“I’m glad, but what does that mean, exactly?”
“Eh... not much that wasn’t true already.” He shrugged. “You saw what happened on the steps today. Solana and my parents will defend you like that, just like I would, if anyone insults you. Especially an outsider - family’s understood to have squabbles, but any other turian who speaks ill of you will find themselves challenged by any Vakarian who hears of it. If I die before you, you’ll get my military pension from the Hierarchy, and the family Vakarian will always take care of you if you need it. And this little fellow, too, of course,” he added, bouncing Tarquin lightly in his arms. The little boy cooed happily.
There was a celebration that night in Garrus’s family home, with all the Vakarians eating and drinking and talking - and shouting, too, because apparently families really were the same everywhere in the universe, Shepard noticed with a smile. And then the next morning they said goodbye to Garrus’s family, complete with hugs and forehead presses, and took the shuttle they’d summoned back to the Normandy, carrying more supplies than Shepard could have imagined one small child could possibly need. Toys, clothes, infant formula... it was all a bit overwhelming, and the shuttle pilot stifled a laugh to see the great Captain Shepard, savior of the universe, loaded down with a duffle full of baby supplies and a cooing infant. He was lucky she was too happy to bother reprimanding him. They’d already had a flight plan filed to meet up with Hannah Shepard’s ship so that she could meet her grandson, too, but there was one more surprise in store for them before they got that far.
“There’s a few people on board who’ve been waiting for you to come back, sir,” the shuttle pilot warned them as they maneuvered into the landing bay on the Normandy.
He wasn’t kidding, and ‘a few’ didn’t seem to properly cover the matter. The landing bay was full of familiar faces, many of whom Shepard hadn’t thought to see again anytime soon. Even before the shuttle door had opened all the way Shepard found herself practically bowled over by an enthusiastic and un-masked Tali’Zorah, followed closely by Liara, and in the crowd she could see the hulking forms of Wrex and Bakara and a good handful of their oldest children, Miranda, Kaiden, Grunt, Jack, Jacob, Kasumi... and all of that in addition to everyone who was still part of the crew of the Normandy. “How the hell did you get here for this?” she asked Tali as the quarian did her best to bear-hug Garrus, despite the fact that with the breadth of his armor she couldn’t quite get her arms around his ribcage.
“Blame Joker, of course.” Tali grinned. “He and EDI and Traynor contacted all of us, and arranged for transport so that we could all get to the sector if we didn’t have access to a ship ourselves. You were there for my baby’s naming ceremony. You didn’t think I’d miss yours if I could help it at all, did you?”
“I thought...” Shepard swallowed an unexpected lump of emotion in her throat. “I thought you wouldn’t want to leave Rannoch, now that you have it.”
“Please, Shepard. You gave me Rannoch. You helped us make peace with the geth, and they gave us the freedom to go without our suits. I would not dream of missing the chance to welcome your child home.” She held out her three-fingered hand to Tarquin, so like and yet unlike his, and the little boy grabbed her forefinger with his tiny talons and squealed with delight.
“Tarquin Vakarian,” Shepard intoned quietly, “this is Tali’Zorah vas Neema nar Raaya. She’s...” Shepard glanced at Garrus, and he shrugged, his mandibles flared wide. “She’s your auntie.”
After that, there was little question that everyone else wouldn’t want to be introduced and known to Tarquin in the same way. Everyone wanted to see him, hold him, and be called his family. Even EDI proudly held the little boy and admitted to considering herself and Joker his honorary aunt and uncle, though Joker insisted he couldn’t trust himself to hold a baby. “I know he’s light, but... y’know, bones, me, breaking. He’s a cute little guy, though. For a miniature spikey-headed monster.”
“Ha ha.” Garrus grumbled as he carefully took the boy back from EDI.
The drinks came out as everyone passed through to meet Tarquin, and EDI quirked the public address system to pipe music into the lounge. Someone had even had a huge birthday cake made for the occasion, with the words ‘Welcome to the Normandy’ neatly piped in blue icing on the sugary white surface. Shepard sat on one of the benches to eat hers, watching as, a few feet away, hulking Bakara cradled tiny Tarquin in her arm, teasing him with a string of beads that hung from her hood.
“Funny thing, seeing a krogan hold a turian infant.” Garrus leaned over Shepard, one foot up on the bench next to her and his arms folded on his knee.
She rested her cheek against his thigh. “You mind?”
He glanced back at Bakara, then shrugged. “Nah. As little as twelve years ago, I’d have felt like I had to rip him out of her hands just to be sure he was safe. Now... she’s just another friend. Crazy how much the universe has changed in such a short time.”
Shepard tilted her head up so she could watch him instead of Bakara and Tarquin. “Twelve years ago you and I hadn’t even met.”
A gloved hand carded gently through her hair. “Yeah. Like I said, crazy how much the universe changes.”
“And it’s changing even more, now. You gonna be okay with that?”
“With being a dad? Hmm. I think I can manage. As long as you’re with me in it all.” He bent, carefully conscious of his inflexible armor, and kissed the crown of her head. “I always said I’d follow you into any kind of madness.”
“Oh, yeah?” Shepard stood, wrapped her arms around his tapered waist, and slid one hand up the back of his neck to caress the delicate skin at the base of his crest. He shuddered, flexing his mandibles and arching back into her touch with a softly purring growl. “Any madness at all, huh?”
“You haven’t given an order yet that was so crazy I wouldn’t follow it,” he murmured.
“Careful, I might take that as a challenge...”
Garrus laughed. “Wouldn’t want that. Okay, I take it back. There’ve been plenty of crazy ones. Turns out, I’m just crazy enough to follow them.”
“Hey, which of us went vigilante?”
“Only because I thought I’d lost my commander.” Garrus pressed his forehead to hers, his arms around her waist and pulling her forward so their hips met. “We turians can’t stand to have the chain of command broken, you know. We’re lost without somebody we can trust giving the orders.”
“Mmm.” Shepard stroked the sharp line of his mouth with her finger. “You want me to give orders, huh?”
“Well, yeah, but, uh... not right here, with all these people around...”
Shepard grinned, glancing around. “They’re our friends.”
Garrus chuckled softly. “Yeah, I’m still not following the kind of orders I’m thinking of with them around.”
“Do they really count as orders if you’re planning them ahead of time?”
“You’ve never complained before when I take the initiative to plan out strategy ahead of time...”
Shepard laughed and squeezed Garrus’s hand. The heat in his eyes and a particular rumble in this throat were unmistakable to her. “This is all because we’ve spent the last month living in your parents’ apartment, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. Just a little.” He nuzzled her hair softly. “What can I say? I’ve missed being home.”
“Me, too. But we’ve got Tarquin, now...”
Garrus looked back toward their friends, and Shepard followed his gaze. Her heart skipped a beat - she couldn’t see Tarquin. Then she spotted him, being held by a totally dumbstruck-looking Liara while Traynor, Tali, Kal, EDI, Joker and Vega all circled her, looking on.
“She’s supposed to have at least another century before she goes matron on us, I thought...” Shepard muttered, bemused.
“Looks like someone might want to remind Liara of that,” Garrus commented brightly. “And maybe warn the rest of the universe, just in case. Liara turning all that brain-power, secret knowledge, and cunning toward finding a mate and starting a family? That could be even more dangerous than Reapers.”
“Definitely more dangerous than Reapers,” Shepard answered with a grin. “Because we’ll be helping her.”
“True. But my point is... with all of that,” Garrus gestured a claw toward their collected friends, “don’t you think we’re safe disappearing for one last little bit of private time alone? It’s not like we have to worry - he has all our friends keeping watch over him. And I’d bet on them against anything in the universe.”
“Do you want a medical opinion on that?” Chakwas’s voice interrupted from behind them. The grey-haired doctor held a plate of cake in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other, and didn’t wait for Shepard to respond to her question. “Go. Now. If anyone asks where you are, I’ll tell them. And, here,” she added before Shepard could protest, “take my wine. There’s a full bottle and an empty glass over there. Take them with you, and have a peaceful few hours. I’ll abstain, and if the party breaks up before you get back, I’ll take Tarquin back to my quarters. I think I can handle watching one turian infant for a few hours, after babysitting this entire crew for ten years. And you two deserve a few hours’ alone time before you get down to the business of being full-time parents. Believe me - I know.”
Shepard’s stomach twisted with guilt and joy and... sheer relief. “Karin...” she began.
“Don’t thank me, Captain. Consider it karma; I had a few friends who used to make the same deal with me from time to time, and, frankly, my son’s taking his time about giving me grandchildren. Go on. Shoo.” She pressed the wine glass into Shepard’s hand and waved them away, then waded into the crowd in the direction of the knot of people surrounding Tarquin.
“Our friends,” Shepard began, and then stopped as she realized she couldn’t think of a way to finish that sentence that didn’t make put a lump in her throat. “Damn, I really am getting soft, aren’t I?” she laughed softly.
“Yeah.” Garrus nuzzled her temple softly. “Soft and squishy as my favorite Krysae sniper rifle, that’s you. Come on. We’d better take the good doctor’s advice. After all, she’s a medical professional. She knows what’s best for us.”
“You’re not at all excited about this, are you?” Shepard teased.
“Hurry up, before someone notices us. If James sees us slipping away we’ll never get out without the whole ship teasing the living hell out of us.”
“Good point.”
Arms around each other’s waists, they barely made it inside their quarters at the front bow of the top deck before Shepard gave up and shoved Garrus back against the wall, capturing his mouth just as thoroughly as could be done to a member of a species totally lacking in actual lips. He chuckled softly, shifting so she could lean more easily against him. “I used to think this was so strange,” he murmured against her lips.
“What?”
“The human obsession with ‘kissing.’ Turians don’t do it.”
“For obvious reasons,” Shepard agreed with a grin. “I can see how it wouldn’t sound that interesting to bump hard chitin mouthparts together. Although there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your tongue...”
Garrus ran the blue-black appendage up the tendon on the side of her neck in response, and won a pause of humming pleasure followed by eager hands tugging at the closures of his armor for his effort. “I got over it, obviously.”
“You think you have it figured out, now, huh?” Shepard teased.
“Mmm. I won’t say I’ve exactly mastered the art, but I can certainly appreciate it. Those soft lips of yours feel pretty damn good, it turns out.”
“Oh, they do, huh? Where, exactly?”
“Exactly?” Garrus laughed. “Where do you want to start?”
“You said earlier that you had ideas...”
“I also said I’d follow any orders you want to give me,” he growled softly, his eyes gleaming. “But if you’re asking... I like them on my throat...”
Shepard tilted his head back with a gentle hand on his chin and trailed kisses down the soft skin under his jaw.
“...And on my chest... and my stomach...”
Shepard laughed against his neck. “Okay... slow down, Officer Vakarian. I haven’t even got your armor off yet, and we’ve got hours before we have to go get Tarquin from Chakwas. Let’s take this one step at a time.”
And so they did. Clothes and armor came off, and callused fingers and hard talons made loving and thorough explorations of familiar skin. Shepard gasped as a single talon traced a delicate line up her thigh while the slightly rough texture of a turian tongue made its way down her throat. They took it slow. For once, there was no reason to rush.
Later, when the wine was gone and the heat of their bodies had dissipated into a soothing glow, they got dressed. Shepard combed her hair (no need to scandalize the crew by appearing in the unreasonably tussled state their play had worked her into) while Garrus set up the cradle they had brought from the planet, and then they had the computer check Chakwas’ whereabouts. The doctor was back in her quarters. They walked there arm in arm, leaning on each other maybe a little more than was strictly necessary, a tiny bit more than was usually allowed in public corridors... but who the hell cared, anymore? The whole crew knew, there was no secret, they were off-duty, and there was nothing indecent about the embrace, apart from the obvious implication that the two people involved knew each other’s bodies as well as their own. That kind of intimacy, sure, was not exactly proper public behavior for either of their species. It was also hard to care about that, given everything they’d been through.
Chakwas answered the door with her uniform jacket hanging half-open and Tarquin cradled against her chest, fast asleep.
“Thank you, again.” Shepard tried to keep her voice low enough not to disturb him, but the blue eyes fluttered open, and tiny claws made grasping gestures in her direction. Shepard took the little boy, amazed at how quickly he settled in, the soothing little purr once again reverberating through his tiny body.
Chakwas stretched her arm, working out the kinks, and smiled. “Any time.”
The walk back to the loft seemed shorter than before, and after a little rocking Tarquin fell easily back to sleep in the cradle. Garrus and Shepard sat on the bed watching him.
“Still doesn’t seem like it can possibly be right, huh?” Garrus murmured. “Us. Parents.”
Shepard watched the slow rise and fall of Tarquin’s tiny armored chest for a long moment, then twined her fingers with Garrus’s, resting her cheek on his shoulder. “I dunno. I’m starting to think it feels pretty perfect, after all.”