As requested, the third story in the 'Uncle' and 'Dad' universe. If you're interested, I'd recommend reading those two first to avoid some confusion. Simultaneously being posted on the masseffectkink community on livejournal.
Quick Recap: After a visit to Palaven to meet Garrus' nephew three years post-Reaper War, Shepard and Garrus planned to start their own family. With all the life lost throughout the galaxy, each species looked to protect and preserve their own, which didn't readily allow for interspecies couples to adopt. Despite some struggle, Shepard and Garrus had a human daughter, Hannah, with another on the way, both via sperm donor. The new Council settled on Eden Prime since the Citadel was destroyed, Victus was made Councilor, and Garrus' father was promoted to Primarch. Shepard and Garrus found home on Earth after retirement from the military life. Somewhere in between all of this, there was angst, fluff, awkward father-in-law interactions, numerous crises of self, and brief appearances by a mix of Shepard's old crew. This story picks up eight months after the end of 'Dad.' Shepard and Garrus are parents to two human daughters now, and after some consideration of the conversation she had with Councilor Victus (in 'Dad'), Shepard has taken him up on his offer to assist the new Council in something of an advising capacity. All of which leads to unique circumstances involving a Turian child. As far as a timeline goes, this puts us approximately around 9-10 years after the events of ME3.
Eden Prime. Beautiful Eden Prime. Well, there had been a few years in between where things had gone from stunning paradise planet to abandoned shit hole right about when Saren touched down on it's surface, but the years since the Reaper War had served to re-establish the colony to much more than it ever was before as the site of the new Council's base of operations. It really was the type of place that left many without the right words to describe it, and though there had been much disagreement with settling the Council on the planet that had initially been of human colonization, most shouts of objection were silenced once their ships landed and they were bathed in the warmth and greenery.
It was beautiful, no doubt about it, but Shepard couldn't wait to get the hell off that rock.
Three days she'd been stuck there, buried in meetings and formal ceremonies, and putting on a brave face for the media that had gathered together. After the near-disappearing act she'd done since her unofficial retirement from the Alliance years prior, Shepard had the unfortunate displeasure of realizing firsthand how little things had changed; there would never be a lack of interest in gossip and scandal. And the former Commander Shepard turning up out of the blue as something of de facto advisor to the Council on the very day they welcomed the first new Council race into their folds… well, it would have the extranet buzzing for days. Maybe even weeks.
But she'd done her duty, hell, she hadn't even once felt the muscle memory of her right hook itching to be exercised when a few familiar, but aged, faces delved outside the realm of politics and into her personal life, a matter that she'd steadfastly insisted was just that—personal—and would never belong to the public. There were rumors out there, always had been since the Alliance had recognized her to be alive and breathing after the war. Rumors that of all the sentient beings in the galaxy, Shepard had taken a Turian lover, and then in the years that followed, that she had fallen off the grid with that specific alien, and had even dared to start something of a family. Liara had always kept them abreast on the latest mentions of her around the galaxy, as only a precaution to her family's well-being and nothing more. Shepard and her friends, so it seemed, would never lack dedication in keeping the Shepard-Vakarians safe and unharmed. So Shepard wasn't about to let the words from her mouth be the ones that put them in jeopardy now, not after years of the solitude and peace they'd enjoyed.
"If you'll forgive me, Councilor Zaal'Koris," Shepard said, her hand offered and immediately welcomed by the Quarian, "but I'm due at the docks if I want to catch the last ship back to Earth."
Zaal'Koris nodded his head in thanks, the light below his visor flickering in time with his words. On Rannoch, Quarians had gone without their suits for years now, but off-world was a different story. The worries weren't as extreme as they had been, where a puncture had formerly come with the likelihood of needing antibiotics at the very least, but the Geth-immune boosting programs could only do so much. In accepting his position as Councilor for the Quarian race, he'd also come to accept that the bulk of what remained of his life would be spent within that suit while the rest of his people enjoyed their freedom back home.
"I—we—appreciate the help you've offered us. When we heard a few months ago that you were determined to get the Council to start considering new additions once more… well, I thought it would be years, a decade even, before we saw that progress. I've no question it's you we have to thank for this, Commander."
She held no rank any longer, but colloquially, Shepard knew she would always bear the title of what she'd once been. In some ways, it was more familiar than her own name, and she doubted anyone beyond the handful of close friends she had even knew her first name at all. Commander, she'd forever be.
"This Council's not like what was before," Shepard said in response. "They've learned from the mistakes of the past, and if they start forgetting it, I'm here to give them a kick in the right direction."
Oh the new Asari councilor had dragged her heels on the thoughts of admitting yet another councilor to the mix—as if the last addition, humans, had only been yesterday. 'Think of who we'll have to allow in next!' she'd said in a fitful moment of frustration. 'Krogans?' Shepard wouldn't soon forget the look of horror the Asari had worn when Shepard had simply told her that she'd already spoken to Urdnot Wrex about who would fit the bill when—not if—it came time for the Krogans to take their rightful place on the Council as well.
"All the same," he continued, "you have my thanks. I suppose I shall see you here again soon."
"Not too soon," Shepard said with something of a smile, bowing her head in goodbye.
She extricated herself from the conversation as cleanly as possible, and though the crowd that had gathered to welcome the Quarian into the Council had thinned considerably as the afternoon and evening had worn on, Shepard still had to fight to work her way towards the outer edge of the meeting room. The escape was managed fairly well without further stalling as she dodged and avoided the bodies of those she knew to be talkers, moving more like the N7 officer she used to be rather than the war veteran with a bad knee.
In fact, she'd nearly thought she'd succeeded until she caught the sound of her name called from a familiar flanging voice.
"Commander." Victus said, following her down the steps.
"Don't!" She raised her open hand to him in the universal gesture for someone or something to stop. "You know damn well I've got a ship to catch out of here, so whatever it is, unless you're telling me the sun's going supernova or something else of that magnitude, it can wait." Shepard didn't stop for a second, proceeding down the rest of the way to the car where her driver waited, door open.
He rumbled with some laughter, not far behind. "At least let me ride with you. I've something to see to at the docks."
Teeth gritted, she rolled her shoulders in an irritated shrug of impatience. She needn't glance to her omni-tool to know the time and how close she was cutting it. Long gone were the days of the Normandy working as her private transport, flying to and fro across the galaxy as she pleased. She was a passenger now, and even her name probably wouldn't have been enough to hold a passenger vessel of that size in wait for her. "I won't stop you," she admitted in defeat and got in.
Councilor Victus joined her and though the first few minutes were met with silence, only the soft barely there sound of the sky car's engine and other passing vehicles, it wasn't too long before he cleared his throat to draw her attention.
"The other Councilors and I have been talking…"
"I know what you're going to say," Shepard cut him off. "And when I agreed to this, it was with the understanding that I'd only be here when absolutely necessary. If your requirements have changed, then it's something we have to talk about. I'll be glad to step down and let someone take my place." Whether she was bluffing or not, she doubted Victus would be able to come to a conclusive decision within the seconds allotted to form a response. Her cards were on the table. "Let's just get to the truth of what this is really about," she continued. "You're concerned about the Krogan having a seat on the Council."
His mandibles flared but made no sound. Victus may have become more worldly in regard to species relations since his time began as Councilor, but it wouldn't compare to the time Shepard had spent living beside her own Turian. She'd always have a leg up when it came to reading his features.
"Nothing gets by you."
The car came to a rolling stop. "You asked for my help, all of you. If you're going to second guess every one of my opinions then there's no reason for me to be here to begin with." Shepard moved to climb out of the car. By time Victus made it out, she already had her bag pulled from the trunk and slung over a shoulder. "Not saying it has to happen tomorrow or even this year. But in time, expanding the Council is going to need to happen. By inviting people in, rather than keeping them out, you're going to gain allies instead of creating enemies."
Victus' head shook in disagreement. Not with her, but of the position he'd been placed into by the Asari and Salarian portions of the council. Years ago, he never would have let himself be swayed like that, conned into using his friendship—and it was friendship, wasn't it?—with Shepard to help them get what they wanted. But he'd softened over the last few years, let his guard fall in the world of politics. It had never been his forte.
He walked with her inside the main terminal of the port, keeping up the grueling pace she set for them. "You're right, Commander."
Shepard slowed and came to a full stop at his admission. The corner of her mouth lifted in a grin. "Pains you to say that, doesn't it?" She teased.
"Don't tell Vakarian."
Around them, passengers of nearly every alien variety scuttled about, departing and arriving down to the planet. Sometimes it reminded Shepard far too much of the Citadel that had once been. Obviously the one glaring difference was that this was a planet, formed billions of years ago by happenstance and not a Reaper-created space station of dubious origin… and there wasn't a damn Keeper in sight. She'd never admit it to anyone except Garrus, not when she was supposed to be the paragon of interspecies understanding, but those bugs had always creeped her out. She was glad they'd gone out with the Reapers.
The numbers of people though, especially condensed around the part of the planet that was home to the new Council, and the richness in the variety of species, that was what reminded her of the Citadel. In the distance she heard the chattering of voices, words just far away and unclear enough for her translator not to pick it up properly, leaving the people buzzing in their native tongue. Children of all planets of origin giggled and threw tantrums, and there was even the harsh and painful cry of what she knew had to belong to something not more than a few months old. Her body ached at the reminder of her own children waiting for her at home. It had hurt to leave.
"I've got to go," she said with a nod to Adrien, "Hannah's been raising hell about me being gone and I like to pretend my six month old has even noticed I've been missing." Shepard shifted the heavy bag pulling at her shoulder, brow furrowing as she did so. "Didn't you say you had something to do here?"
"Yes," a sigh, "I should be getting to that."
There was another wail, and this time Shepard was unable to ignore it, glancing back in the direction it had come from. "Jesus, isn't someone looking after that kid? Sounds like it's being murdered."
She didn't fail to inwardly acknowledge how much had changed for her in the last few years. Catch her half a decade earlier and she would have more than likely turned a blind ear to that sound. Someone else's child, someone else's problem. But now, in some ways her body had finetuned and rewired itself to hear those piercing cries of her own children especially, but even the stranger infant howling nearby. She wouldn't express those sentiments to Victus of all people, for as close as they ever would be, they were still respected colleagues first and foremost. Garrus, though, he would have seen the pain on her features, and probably felt her uneasiness in himself as well.
"That would be why I'm here," he confessed, and started walking towards the proverbial eye of the storm. He was unsurprised to find Shepard following along with him; she could never stand not having all the facts.
"You're not—are you?" She asked, almost incredulous at the thought that Adrien Victus had fallen into fatherhood again. Turian age was always hard to tell, but Shepard knew him to be far older than he looked. The thought of him settling down and starting a family at his age, well it just wouldn't have been something she saw coming. Not after Tarquin.
"No, no," he was quick to reply as they approached a specific docking bay, the immediate area bustling with mostly Turian faces. Palaven would be the likely destination. "He was found a few weeks ago," Victus said, his head tilted in slightly towards Shepard's to keep the conversation to themselves. "Left at the medical center. A bit small, and from what they could tell, failed to imprint. Happens sometimes, no one really knows why, but it makes it hard on the mother to bond with the child. Thousands of years ago, a child like this would have been one left to die for failure to thrive. It's not exactly a shock when that long cultivated instinct kicks in for someone to leave their child behind."
The closer in proximity they were, the louder the cries resounded. They weren't dissimilar to those of her children, still laced with the same desperate terror and discomfort, but with the addition of flanging subvocals that echoed in time with all the rest. Shepard could recall the sounds of Garrus' nephew's cries from the days they had spent on Palaven, visiting with the newborn and Solana. Not once, even in the worst of that little boy's fits, had she heard such a pitiful sound as she was hearing now.
"Where is she?"
"The mother?" Victus shrugged, and it was evident by the stiffness in his frame that the cries were having an effect on him in some manner as well. He was a father, even if it had been decades since he'd last heard his own offspring make that sound. Giving a nod to the Turian charged with the care of transporting the infant, he peered down inside the carrier. "No one knows. Unfortunately, Eden Prime's become something of a port of call for civilians and military. It's not implausible that the mother could have even been a soldier and had it during shore leave, abandoning the evidence here. Concealing a Turian pregnancy doesn't take much."
Shepard discarded her bag at her feet, and without concern for Victus or the other Turian hovering nearby, reached for the Turian child. She was careful, first curling the bit of blanket around him to ensure his warmth, then extra cautious as the tiny thing squirmed with a deceptive amount of strength for the size that he was. He didn't stop making that hideous sound, but Shepard proceeded anyway in drawing him close to her chest, shoulder, and neck, imitating how she'd seen Solana do with her own son years ago.
"We kept him here to see if his mother would turn up," Victus went on, watching Shepard and the infant, "but there's only so long we could. He'll have better luck being back on Palaven than here, at least."
In the months leading to Hannah's birth, Shepard had been struck with the deep fear that when it came to her, those motherly instincts everyone talked of would fail to show. That, despite all her success in the military and otherwise, she would be absolutely unfit for motherhood. It hadn't exactly been a smooth transition, and the months after her daughter had been with them were full of a long list of mistakes—but more important, learning from where they'd gone wrong. As weary as being parents to two children made both her and Garrus, there was no dispute in the fact that the rearing of her second daughter came with less of a struggle, those skills and instincts already honed. And now, even to a child not of her own species, Shepard found herself drawing on the things she'd learned over the last four years.
At her shirt's collar and breast, she could feel tiny claw-like fingers and toes pawing at fabric and skin, dull talons scraping against her for purchase. It was much like the behavior in human newborns, their fists closing in around proffered fingers, except Shepard imagined for Turians, this clawing was much closer held to a human's rooting reflex. Holding tightly onto a parent in the Turian evolutionary line was probably as much of a difference between life and death as it was for human newborns to long for milk when they were fresh from the womb.
Her hand rubbed up and down over the small boy, from the back of his skull where his fringe would grow from as he aged, down over his clothed and blanketed back. All the while, in her ear, the baby continued to protest in distress, even with his death grip upon her clothing. He tucked his face in towards her neck and hair, burrowing in closely to her warmth, mandibles flicking with each of his deep breaths. For once in her life, Shepard was jealous she didn't have that large open cowl that all Turians had. He would have been right at home there.
"I thought you had a ship to catch?"
Shepard painfully pulled her eyes away from the Turian on her shoulder to glance back towards the opposite side of the terminal. Through the large windows, she could see the Earth-originating vessel in question, the one she should've been on minutes ago, breathing easy en route back to her family. Her feet, however, kept her rooted to the ground. "I—" She couldn't bring herself to finish that statement. "What'll happen to him on Palaven?"
Victus had the courtesy not to bring up the departing flight again, and instead reached his hand towards the baby, brushing the back of one of his fingers against the child's bare feet as they peeked barely from the bottom edge of the blanket. "They have places set up for this, you know," he said as a bit of a warning to her. This isn't your cause. "But I imagine they'll find a family to take him in temporarily after some time, then hopefully something permanent eventually."
She swallowed hard at the notion. It wasn't like she didn't have a clue what happened to abandoned children. There had been so many on Earth immediately after the end of the Reaper War, and part of her would always regret having returned to the military afterward instead of taking in one or two of those parentless children when they'd needed it most. She knew the stories, and though she wasn't sure on the facts in regards to Turians, she suspected the concept wasn't completely changed from what she knew. He'd be passed around for a few weeks, months, and if he was lucky enough, one of those families fostering him would stick. If they knew what clan he came from, it would have made things simpler with the hope that some distant relative of the same bloodline would have the honor to step in and claim him as their own. But without that…
Shepard let her cheek rest gently against the boy's head as he seemed to calm from the contact of another living being to him. Her eyes shut to fight the burning watering she felt there. Christ, she thought, when had she become so soft? She couldn't kid herself, though. Shepard knew the answer, and it was probably sometime around when Garrus had first started talking to their eldest daughter late at night while she still found her home in Shepard's stomach. The tough-as-nails Commander had died that day.
"He sounds hungry," Shepard ventured, reopening her eyes, this time to level them at the Turian they had found the infant with. "Were you just going to let him scream all the way to Palaven, starving?"
The Turian glanced from Shepard to Victus, and finding no support there, stood a little straighter. "N-no, Ma'am."
The answer didn't placate her, starting up slow pacing across a few feet of the flooring, reminiscent of the the action she'd undertaken on sleepless nights with either of her girls, desperately trying to rock them back into slumber. It wasn't just mindless moving though, and behind her eyes, she was calm and calculating, like she was planning the infiltration of a Geth base, rather than soothing a Turian child.
"Commander," Victus prompted.
Blinking, vacant eyes met his, a brow raised in question.
"If you don't leave now, you'll be stuck here until morning."
"I know," she said with an exhale, halting in place as her body relaxed, almost visibly deflating. "But listen to him," she said, her head nudging back towards where the infant was curled into her, exhausted coos still being chirped out intermittently. Just when she thought he'd worn himself down enough, he would let out another shrill sound, a sharp reminder of his presence, as if she could forget with his fingers pinching at her skin through her clothing. "Can you say you're willing to put him on a ship for the next eight hours, sounding like this?"
Victus' brow plates flexed and flattened, mandibles spread wide as he took a steadying breath. He exchanged a look with Shepard before his eyes fell back on the child's back as it was ever so often shaking with the tremor of his distraught nature. "No."
Shepard didn't say anything else, just bent at the knees and reached for the strap of her bag to sling it's straining weight over her shoulder again. "Get his things. We're going back."