Arrival on Palaven

Garrus stepped off the transport that had taken him from orbit down to the surface. It was good to feel the warm of the home world and to see his home town again. An added bonus would be hearing nothing but turian spoken for a while instead of the boring drone of his translator. Garrus was convinced government issued translators that were issued, or swiped upon leaving C-Sec, were this boring on purpose. It made its wearer want to learn other languages just to be able to stop using the droning device.

"Garrus over here." A shout came from the crowd. Garrus turned and saw a well dressed female waving at him to get his attention, as were two younglings.

Garrus made his way towards the woman and put down his bag just in time to brace himself for the crushing hug he received, which he returned.

"It good to see you Solana. I wasn't sure if you would meet me." Garrus said putting his sister back on the ground.

"If I wasn't going to meet you I wouldn't have asked for your flight information. Besides, know you dear brother, you would have done something foolish like check into a hotel for the evening before showing up to the funeral tomorrow." Solana shot at Garrus who could only look away from his sister's piercing gaze. Even though he hadn't been home in years she still knew her older brother well enough to have him pegged.

"I didn't want to cause trouble at home." Garrus offered in way of excuse. It was no secret that Garrus didn't get along with his father. When Garrus still came home for vacations it was only at his mother's and sister's combined insistence but after their mother got sick and started to slip away…

"Nonsense. You know that mother would have wanted you to come home."

"Fine." Garrus gave in. He rarely ever won arguments with his sister and those few victories were after hour long fights, and he didn't want to do that in the middle of a public spaceport. Especially not with two pairs of small eyes peeking out from either side of Solana's dress.

Garrus squatted down so that he was at eye level with the younglings. Without looking up he asked, "Are you going to introduce me Solana?"

"Kids, this is your uncle Garrus." Solana said gently as she nudge each of her children from behind her.

"Hey, that's my name." The youngling to Garrus' left proclaimed.

"Yes it is Leto but it's also your uncle's name and your grandfather's name." Solana explained. "We use his middle name at home. And this extremely shy one," Solana said drawing Garrus' attention to the other youngling who had refused to come out from behind Solana, "is Camilla."

"We're twins." Leto supplied as he stuck out his hand.

"Nice to meet you both." Garrus greeted as he shook his nephew's hand. "And how old are you two?" Garrus asked, picking up his bag, and starting to walk. Leto seemed content to hold his hand as they headed towards a public transport stand.

"We just turned six." Leto replied. "We started going to school this year."

Garrus' nephew turned out to be the rather talkative type while his sister didn't say much during the ride to the Vakarian house hold. The only time Camilla ever said anything was to softly correct her brother when he was telling a story wrong, but otherwise she never spoke directly to her uncle. Solana just watched her brother interact with her children. Garrus had never seen either of them before but he seemed to slip into the role of uncle rather well.

Upon arrival at the Vakarian house hold they were greeted by two turians males, one much older than the other. Both the children bolted from between Garrus and Solana to the younger turian with cries of "Daddy!" before engulfing him in hugs. They weren't as pronounced in their greetings of their grandfather but warmly greeted him all the same.

"You must be the famous brother Garrus. I'm Remus, Solana's mate. She never shuts up about you." The younger turian introduced himself and shook Garrus' hand.

"Pleasure to meet you and I feel your pain. She has quite the mouth on her."

"That she does." Remus said earning himself a hard glare from his wife.

"Well, let's get people into the house and settled in before dinner. Then straight off to bed kids, we have a big day tomorrow." Solana ordered and started ushering her family inside, leaving only Garrus and his father.

After a few moments of silence, Garrus Sr finally spoke, "Solana made up your old room." And with that the Vakarian patriarch made his way inside. Garrus followed a few moments later.

-o-o-o-o-

Garrus' room was almost exactly as he had left it almost eight years ago. That was the last time he had come home or had any sort of vacation. It was almost eerie, given how well kept it was. It was almost shrine like, except it was quite clear someone had been spending time in the room. There was a small toy box in one corner, which Garrus opened. Inside he found what you would expect in a little boys toy box; miniature army figures and space ships. What caught his eye was something that clearly wasn't a toy; a C-Sec Officer ID badge. One of his old ones in fact.

"I told Leto that he wasn't supposed to play with any of your old stuff."

Garrus turn to see Solana leaning against his door frame. "It's fine. It's just an old badge any way."

"His current favorite game is to pretend he's a C-Sec officer on the Citadel taking down bad guys ever since he found that badge in your room. It doesn't help that father fills his head with stories, even a couple of yours."

Garrus snorted. "They must be from my early days."

"No, they are more recent. He's had his friends in C-Sec keep tabs on you, you know."

"Making sure I didn't disgrace the family name."

"Garrus… He cares, in his own way."

Garrus grunted in reply.

"Anyway, I came up here to tell you that dinner is ready. And just a heads up, Remus is going to ask you why your face is all scarred up."

"He told he was going to ask?"

"No, I told him to ask. I'm sure father is as curious as I am and Leto wants to know when he grows up if he will get cool scars like uncle Garrus."

-o-o-o-o-

The next morning was the cremation and internment ceremony. After that, Garrus spent a few days visiting and getting to know his expanded family all the while thinking of how he could possibly get someone, anyone to listen to his warning of the Reapers.

Finally Garrus came up with a solution. He wasn't going to like it but if it helped buy Palaven time, if it bought Solana and her family time, Garrus could swallow his pride.

A/N:

Okay I know chapter 1 sucked but it was mostly a copy past of the ending I hastily tacked on to Reboot, with some revisions. What do you think of the home coming I gave Garrus? I saw all those story alerts; surely this warrants a few of you to comment. Until next time!