Chapter 1

Upon realizing that the very important message he had received regarding 'certain members of his posterity' involved speaking to the head of the Citadel Adoption Agency, Sparatus' feelings on the matter evolved from a sick churning in his gizzard (and the insatiable urge to chomp on the nearest deposit of soil to get rid of it) to a cacophonous beating of his heart as though it would pop out of his throat and start beating him to death. And that was before he had even made it to the office in question.

The elevator, as usual for most Citadel elevators, was rather slow in getting to its destination. The only elevator he knew of that wasn't slow was the one that went from the presidium to the Citadel Tower, though he had heard tell of a system in place that was trying to make the elevators go faster. That led to a lot of bickering, hemming and hawing about the keepers and their role in keeping the Citadel up and running and it was for this reason that Sparatus hated his job with the passion of a raving shatha.

By the time the elevator had stopped and the doors opened, Sparatus had officially cursed the names of everyone in the entire building and sending a hateful prayer to the spirit of this accursed Adoption Agency for daring to claim that this situation had anything to do with him. Nevertheless, he held himself straight and walked directly to the center of the building, where a glass door stood between him and the asari head of the agency herself.

The doors opened with a small hum and he walked straight to the asari. The nametag on the desk dubbed her as Administrator Amidai T'Donya, and she stood up in his presence. A cool air hung between them like freshly-fallen snow (and seeing as Sparatus had only ever encountered snow once in his life under unfavorable circumstances, this did not bode well for either of them).

"Administrator T'Donya." Sparatus said coolly.

"Councilor Sparatus. I would like to take the opportunity to say that I appreciate your arrival on such short notice." T'Donya responded. Sparatus shifted his shoulder back a fraction.

"The message I received was listed as high priority and as a private message regarding a family member of mine. I sincerely hope that this is not some sort of cruel joke, T'Donya, or I will not take kindly to any pleas made by the Citadel Adoption Agency as a result of this encounter."

"This is no joke, Councilor. Though even I have a hard time understanding how this happened…" T'Donya tilted her head down, and Sparatus felt as though he was either going to throw up on the spot or eat her chair in order to get that sick feeling to go away already.

"Councilor, I assume you have been briefed on a recent pirate attack on a Citadel Civilian Ship near the Terminus Systems?" T'Donya continued.

"Of course," The feeling got worse and worse oh spirits don't puke, "The ship was to take retired Alliance Soldiers to the human colony of Mindoir. As the turian councilor it is my duty to ensure the safety of civilian ships travelling through Citadel Space, and this attack was an insulting occurrence on behalf of the turian defense force. Your point being."

T'Donya looked down towards her desk, at a particular stack of datapads a little off to the side. Of course Sparatus knew about that ship. It was indeed his job to know about that ship. If he could just cling to that thought, keep his mind from wandering into the undeniable fact that he was trying to ignore was connected to this meeting, then maybe he could keep himself from spilling his guts onto the carpets and ruining his image and losing his council position and being forced to deal with the fact that-

"My point is, Councilor… there were exactly 100 escape shuttles on that ship, each large enough to hold ten persons of average human height." She swiped one of the datapads off of the pile, and held it out to Sparatus. He stared at it.

"Of those 100 escape shuttles, only 37 successfully made it away from the wreckage. Those 37 shuttles each housed the maximum of 10 persons, with some housing up to three small children, all ages 4 to six." He grabbed the datapad. So many names on this list. Casualties, all of them. If he swiped his finger the right way he would be taken to a list of final wills and testaments, a written record of human creation that designated possessions to certain people they assumed would still be alive. He swiped again, and it returned to the list of casualties. He scrolled down to the names that began with the human letter 'S'.

"The Human Systems Alliance successfully recovered the wills and testaments of all casualties that could be recovered, or that existed in the first place." Don't puke don't puke. "I believe you are familiar with former Alliance captain Hannah Shep…"

"Yes, Administrator, I am in fact familiar with Systems Alliance captain Hannah Shepard. As I recall she was killed by batarians while ejecting an escape pod holding three other humans. Now miss T'Donya I would advise you to get to the point quickly before I leave the premises on the assumption that you are only telling me things of which I am already aware of, as I am a very busy man and I have duties to tend to." If he held onto the datapad any tighter he would have shattered it by now and all of his instincts told him that his stomach was trying to digest itself don't puke dammit.

"Hannah Shepard left something to you, Councilor Sparatus." T'Donya stated hoarsely. Sparatus held on even tighter to the datapad. How it hadn't broken by now he had no idea.

"What did she leave behind." Sparatus whispered.

"A young human child." T'Donya said, her voice cracking. "In the event that Hannah was killed and her husband was unavailable, she left her only daughter, Jane Shepard, in the care of turian Councilor Datharn Sparatus."

Sparatus stared so fiercely at the datapad's text, reading word for word the last will and testament of Captain Hannah Shepard. Perhaps the only human in the entire galaxy he had ever had a positive encounter with. And she had been stupid enough to leave a human child under his care in the event of both her death and the death of her husband.

"And this… Jane… where is she?" Sparatus choked out, half expecting his panicking heart to jump out of his larynx.

"She is currently under the care of the Citadel Adoption Agency." T'Donya responded. "According to human law, you are entitled to disavow the will of the late Hannah Shepard and leave Jane under the care of the Citadel Adoption Agency, or accept the will and adopt Jane to your household under human law."

Sparatus set down the datapad. He stood up, with abhorrent posture to boot, and looked T'Donya straight in the eye. It took him a moment to find his voice again, and after swallowing his heart back down his throat about four times, he finally blurted out;

"Where do I sign?"