Life and Love, After the War
Rated T to M (cause I'm not sure about sexy stuff, but there will be swearing)
Hackett finds that after the losses of the war he wants something more than a Fleet Admiral's life.
I borrowed the title from a Deviant Art image by Hackett-Out so props to you. There are references in here to a separate fic that I'm working on for FemShep/Garrus, which may or may not be posted in my lifetime because I'm not entirely happy with it and a little stuck at the moment, hence the Hackett fic. So if you are confused I'm sorry, try to enjoy the story anyway.
This is my disclaimer…Bioware owns pretty much everything that one can recognize within. The things (mostly characters) that are not immediately recognizable as part of Mass Effect came from my twisted little mind.
Reviews are always better than chocolate please leave some!
So that's it and on to the story.
Chapter 1
Little dirty hands, held up in search of comfort. Little cold feet, in need of socks and shoes that fit. Rumbling little tummies that needed to be fed. For so long, that was all that Leah Adaline Truscett knew, that and fear for the tiny owners of all those little hands and feet and tummies. She had fought her own war against the Reaper hordes while the soldiers tried to defeat them. She had tried to hide from them, the precious cargo left in her care on that horrible, fateful day of the invasion. The day that Earth fell. The war was over, the Reapers defeated, but Leah was unaware of all that was going on in the skies above. All she knew was the blankness of unconsciousness for days after the crucible fired. Once she awoke, in a makeshift hospital, all she knew were the images in her memory of tiny hands that were slack in death, and blue blood spattering the sunken face of a young teen, and the sounds of children's screams.
She heard the doctors around her speaking of catatonia, she disagreed with their prognosis, but didn't care enough to correct them. Finally, the fleets made contact and she was shipped up to a medical suite with experts who might help her. She couldn't care what they did or where she was though. She didn't even know any of the kids had survived that last wretched day. She didn't know that the older children were telling the Alliance soldiers and doctors just what it was she'd done for them the last year during the war. They'd told of her bravery and her sacrifice and her care and determination to see as many of them survive as she possibly could.
It was the testament from her traumatized dependants that reached the desks of officers higher and higher up the chain of command until the reports reached the desk of Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett.
The report sat for days while he was enmeshed in trying to hold the people together enough to get the social infrastructure of Earth up and running again. They needed a lot of things in those first weeks after the fall of the Reapers, not the least important of which were food supplies and safe housing for the innumerable refugees and displaced peoples of a destroyed world. A search for more survivors was another of the priorities, and then there was his interest in the recovery of the hero of the war. She'd been fairly badly damaged when the crucible fired and the tower she was in destroyed. He was presiding over ceremonies for lost soldiers and working to help keep what was left of the galaxy stable. That mostly meant exhausting days closeted with the council, since the human councilor had yet to be replaced, and there was confusion as to who would fit the bill for the next counselor from Earth.
Some wanted him to take the position, but he knew where his talents lie, and the council chamber was not that place. He was a soldier first, a leader of soldiers. He was a tactician not a politician. And when he was alone, with no need to hold up appearances, he was a tired man. Those moments of hidden truth were few and very far between, but they were there. Mostly he was just a very busy man. Finally, it was the doctor assigned to his flagship, the SSV Orizaba, that brought the report to his attention. He was sitting in his office working on yet another tangle left from the Reapers, trying to untangle it, when there was a signal at his door.
The Admiral let out a frustrated sigh and ran his palms over his face, wondering why his aide hadn't paged him or simply sent the person away. Then he noticed the time and realized Lieutenant Perkins had long since gone off-shift. She'd probably come in to tell him that when she brought the cold cup of coffee at his elbow, and he'd been too engrossed to notice. He sighed again and called for the visitor to enter. "Doctor Gable," he greeted. His voice, normally full of gravel and infinitely calm, sounded like he'd been gargling glass after he'd had to shout down some panicked civilians earlier in the day.
"Admiral, I see you're ignoring the suggestion I made." The other man was joking and Hackett knew it. He was also aware that there was a reprimand in the jest.
"Not ignoring, Doctor, there's just too much at stake to stop for too long. We are making progress, but it will be months before we can start thinking about sending out that fleet to check on and repair the relays. I rest when I can." He waved the other man into a seat, which Gable accepted. "What can I do for you, John?" They were friends after all, and though the doctor was about ten years his junior in age, they had been working together for much longer than that.
"I know how busy you are, but have you received the reports from the Fort Worth base?"
Hackett was confused, "Probably, I receive reports daily from all of the field hospitals and bases around the globe. Which one are you referring to specifically?"
"They found a woman with a group of nine children in her care. She's not in good shape, the older kids say she was trying to protect them from a group of husks before the end. She was badly hurt and has been mostly comatose for weeks. She needs specialized treatment, I'd like to bring her here. She is as much a hero as the men and women who were trained for this war."
Hackett was intrigued now. "I won't find the report fast enough in that pile, tell me about it."
"We don't know everything, just what the older kid said, and that one was barely into his teens. He didn't know where she came from, or is scared to tell us. They all call her Miss Leah. Seems she took them in while fleeing the onslaught. She already had a group of children with her ranging in age from about a year to nearly fifteen. Apparently at one point the group was close to that many members. The oldest survivor, boy name of Lucas, he's thirteen, said that they had an older couple of teens with them for a short while, but they went out to find food and medical supplies one night and never came back. All they could really tell us was that she kept them safe, and alive." He shook his head. Hackett waited for him to continue.
"I want to take over her care, Steven. She deserves a medal, and the people need stories like hers. A civilian, with no known training, giving her all for those who were more helpless than she was. Lucas told the field docs that she'd hidden his group in a vault when the husks came in, and the team who found her reported that it looked like she was trying to hide the last few kids when the husks caught up with her, a Drell boy, a Turian girl and human boy, he was just a toddler. Those were three of the six kids that didn't make it. The fourth was an infant. In fact, Lucas said that the night Leela and Jas disappeared was the night that the baby died. Apparently, she kept them moving, every other week they'd find some new place to hide for a while."
"I'll find the report, but bring her up. You're right she deserves the best care." Hackett wondered if she really had no training as a soldier, but it was an idle curiosity. "I'll want to meet her when you think she's ready for it."
The younger man shook his head, "I don't know how soon that will be. Latest diagnosis is catatonia. She takes nutrients through an IV, doesn't speak, stares at the walls according to her current physician."
"That's why you want this, it's your secondary specialty, isn't it. Battle trauma and PTSD. Sounds like you're going to be busier than I am." Hackett gave him a grim smile.
"That it is, and I think I can help her. She needs someone to take care of her now. The search for the parents or relatives of all those kids is on, she's done her job and it's time she had the help she needed all along." Hackett nodded and dismissed the doctor.
"If you need anything, John, say the word. You're right, she went above and beyond, and we don't know the whole story."
So it was that Leah was loaded onto a shuttle, and moved from the makeshift hospital in an old, but mostly intact, warehouse to a private room in the Orizaba's medical bay. Nothing really changed, from her perspective. New people poked and prodded and took blood and tried to get her to talk to them. She just closed her eyes at the questions and ignored them. It didn't matter whether her eyes were open or shut, the vivid images of those destroyed little bodies were always in her mind.
She didn't know how long she'd been in this new place when one of the doctors noticed her silent tears. He dried them gently and she focused on his face for the first time. He was a little older than she, maybe ten years. He had that look of all Alliance personnel. He was tall and lean and muscled, but his face was kind and he spoke in a clear tone of voice that was a little mid-range for a man but at the lower end. He smiled at her when he noticed her studying him. "It's all right now. You're safe. We'll take good care of you, Leah. You come back to us though. We need people like you with us while we rebuild the Galaxy." She found the strength to give a slight nod, and though it was barely a movement it was enough. "Rest now." He finally said and she did.
John Gable was surprised when she'd nodded, but took it as a good sign. She was coming back to them a bit, and it was a promising start. He made his way to the Admiral's office once again. The Aide on duty paged Hackett and then asked him to wait a moment. He took a seat to ease the ache in his feet. Shortly, Admiral Hackett himself appeared escorting Commander Shepard, out of her braces and headed down to London to join the cleanup teams. "Just remember to take it easy, Commander. You aren't fully healed yet."
"Of course, sir." She turned and sighted him. "And thanks again Doctor. I'll see you in a week for my next check up."
"No thanks necessary, Commander." He returned her salute and she was off. "A moment, Steven?"
"Sure, I'm not scheduled for any meetings for another hour." Hackett turned back to his office, and Gable followed. "So, how's your new patient doing? Sorry I haven't checked in on that recently. Busy, and I felt that you needed time to asses her and then you'd let me know."
"Well, she's not catatonic. Not totally. She's traumatized certainly, and its going to take time, but she finally responded to me today. Nothing extraordinary, but it was a response." He sighed.
"That's good. I'll try to make time to come down and introduce myself and offer support that is non-medical soon. I assume that you'll want someone outside the medbay to interact with her."
Gable was surprised, not by Hackett's correct assumption, but that he was volunteering himself for the job. "I was going to suggest an outside presence, yes, but aren't you busy enough?"
"Very much so, but I think, it'll be good for me to be involved with an individual's case. All I see is the bigger picture lately. What I do helps thousands, even millions of peoples, however I don't see all of their express problems or the difference we're making. I feel like I'm losing sight of the ultimate goal. Doesn't really feel like I'm helping sometimes. I think I need the one on one experience to make my job more enjoyable again."
"You need a break for certain, and I'm not going to object to you visiting Leah if you want to be more hands on. All she needs at this point is someone to be there. A presence. Talk to her, she likely won't respond, but she can hear well enough. She needs to know that she's not alone any longer, that people care. I thought about bringing some of the surviving kids to see her, but I don't know that it would help her. I do know that seeing her in this state would not help them."
"Makes sense. I'll try to stop in this evening after my last meeting." Hackett couldn't promise anything because there was always the possibility that a crisis would arise.
"Good. I'll let the staff know that you'll be making random visits with her as your schedule allows." Hackett nodded and Gable excused himself.
The Admiral did make it down to see their patient that evening and was surprised at the spark of recognition he had when he saw her. Gable was still around and Hackett sought him out after introducing himself to Leah and talking to her for a short while. He left her with a promise to return soon.
"John." He said it loudly enough that Gable heard him and turned from his duties to answer.
"You've seen her?"
"Yes, and I'm certain I've seen her before. I don't know her, but I remember her with a group of school kids that were on a trip to Alliance Headquarters in Vancouver before the war. They were from a private school for diplomat's and soldier's children. I don't remember which, but I was visiting Anderson and Shepard when they came through."
"Vancouver? That's a hell of a long way to go with a dozen or more small children, to end up where they were found." He shook his head in admiration. "Well, it's not much, but we might be able to search what records are still intact from schools around Vancouver. Maybe we can find her. You've got a hell of a memory, Sir." Gable sounded guarded but hopeful.
Hackett shrugged off the comment. "Just a knack for faces after so long in the Alliance. I'm going to sit with her a while longer, but I wanted to let you know. I'll get someone started sifting through school records tomorrow. Maybe Shepard's friend, Miss Goto, she's done excellent work with things like this in the past." He made his exit then and returned to Leah's room. He spent a long while in there talking to her of that day he'd seen her with the kids.
Leah watched this man that she knew of, but never expected to meet. Sitting at her bedside and talking to her as though they were acquainted. He was right, he'd been in another Admiral's office when their tour had arrived to meet the other man. He'd not stayed long, though, and she was a little startled that he remembered her. Then she realized that she'd not thought of the kids the whole while he was talking, and felt guilty for it and the tears had begun again.
Hackett was startled by her tears, and wondered if he'd said something wrong, but he stayed and put a gentle hand over the fist clenched tightly at her side. "It's all right. I'm sorry, I've said too much maybe." She didn't respond to him, but he stayed there until she seemed to drift off into sleep. "I'll be back." He said even though she couldn't hear him.