Some time ago, Garrus had started sleeping. It wasn't that he'd never slept before in his life, no, Turians needed sleep just like any kind of creature. It was just that what they required of it was decidedly less than most others. Maybe it was what had led his species to become the apex predators of Palaven, another link in the chain of things that had given them the advantage over the other lifeforms and prevented them from being weeded out far earlier on. Day and night, they'd been able to hunt and to protect. It was something that in modern times made them particularly efficient in their military, even all the other things, like the societal duty to public service, aside. While the rest of the galaxy sought out extended slumber, the Turians spent a few extra spare hours wide awake.

All of them, so it seemed, except for Garrus. And for that, he would always blame Shepard.

The transition had been a slow one, starting out in the days before the end of the war when after a particularly tiring session of reach-and-flexibility, Shepard would roll into him, arm draped over his slender waist, head nuzzled into the soft hide of his neck. At first, he'd told himself their post-coital cuddling was for her benefit. With everything that had been going on, sleep was a rarity, especially for the commander. So if lying beside her in that big bed in her cabin was what it took to make sure she got some well needed rest, Garrus would stay there until the discoloration beneath her eyes had faded along with some of her exhaustion.

After the war, sleep had become more than just a necessity to make it through the day for Shepard. She'd woken from that coma that had held her body in a kind of indefinite stasis, and despite the fact that most of her more serious wounds had been treated as she'd slept, Shepard had still spent most of her days catching more rest, allowing her body to heal itself the only way it knew how. Garrus had stayed with her then, too, and when she was well enough, Shepard had inched across the space of her hospital bed and welcomed him into it, drawing the comfort and reassurance she needed from him. There had been nightmares then, almost every night, and Garrus couldn't recall even a single evening he'd spent apart from her, leaving her to fight the painful images on her own.

And when Shepard was pregnant with Hannah, there was no question about whether Garrus would have been asleep beside her through the months of exhaustion. Usually, so it went, with his hand on her stomach, feeling the light kicks of their daughter as he fell asleep, and the other arm curled around Shepard to offer her the support her tired muscles desperately needed.

Sleep was just another thing to add to the list when it came to all the ways that Garrus Vakarian-Shepard was a bad, bad Turian. But as the father of two small human children, he realized that perhaps he'd made an entirely huge mistake.

Hannah had been a decent sleeper, or at least she was as far as he knew after all the reading he'd done in preparation for his first daughter's birth. From the beginning, she'd gone a stretch of five or six hours without waking on most nights, content to stay asleep until hunger pains left her crying for her mother. It was a simple routine, one that involved Shepard or him fetching the infant from the bassinet to bring her back to bed, and letting the newborn nurse until her stomach was full, whereupon she promptly finished off with another hour or two of sleep between her parents. There was the odd bad night mixed in, where nothing could settle the little girl down properly and one or both of them had remained awake throughout Earth's dark hours in order to quell her crying however they could, but on the whole, Garrus and Shepard both knew that they had been blessed.

Their second daughter though, she had been obstinate from the start, and during her first week, Alice had more than earned her affectionate nickname of Trouble. Trouble, like clockwork, woke every two to three hours during the night, despite the longer stretches of sleep she seemed to desire during the day. And that crying, oh that keening had been particularly painful on everyone's ears, including Hannah's. Spoiled as she was, Hannah had been used to spending a few nights a week between her parents just as she had as an infant. After her sister's birth, however, Hannah—ever still the lover of sleep—had promptly moved herself back to her own bedroom and miniature bed to escape the intermittent waking. Garrus had been jealous of his daughter then, because damn if he didn't miss a full night's sleep as well.

Six months in, and Alice's sleeping patterns had changed just enough to be not quite as painful as they had once been, but as Garrus rubbed his balled up fist into his eye and yawned, he couldn't help but hate Shepard just for a moment for ruining his Turian sleeping habits. Maybe he would have been a little better prepared if she hadn't turned him so downright slovenly over the last decade.

Another yawn struck him, this one louder and heavier than the first, as Garrus rubbed his hand along Hannah's back, her little body strewn across the length of the couch. Her face was buried into one of the pillows, hands gripping at the top edge of her blanket—one she'd received as a gift from Liara upon her birth and as such, was a little too small for a four year old—while her bare feet and calves were left exposed further down. She hardly went without it, the girl finding a magical kind of comfort in the inanimate object whenever needed, especially her afternoon nap. Garrus rose from where he sat on the floor beside the couch a few minutes after feeling her breathing grow shallow and even out, the sign that she had finally pulled away from consciousness, but didn't leave her there without bending back down to her and brushing his forehead over her scalp and tangled hair.

If there was anything he'd learned since becoming a father, it was that every minute your children were asleep was a gift, and one that shouldn't, under any conditions, be wasted. From the living room he headed to the kitchen and started the delayed clean-up from lunch earlier in the day, picking up plates and cups and brushing the crumbs from Hannah's grilled cheese onto the mess of dishes. Cooking for humans these days had become even more familiar than it was to make anything for himself, and he would have been lying if he said he hadn't grown somewhat fond of the traditional smells and sights of what his wife and daughter ate on a regular basis. Hannah always did, however, seem to make sure a few bites of whatever she was eating was shared with her father, and though his digestive system lacked the ability to gain any kind of true nutrition from her scraps of dinner and tiny child-oriented snacks, Garrus always played along, if only to hear his daughter giggle and see her smile.

There was a pleasantness to the domesticity of it all, even the feel of soapy water on his hands as he cleaned the dishes made of child-safe plastic and lacking sharp edges. Garrus Vakarian, former C-sec officer, vigilante, and war hero, loved nothing more than the space of their kitchen, from the bottles resting on the drying rack next to the sink to the drawings and other strange arts and crafts projects of Hannah's that littered the surface of their fridge. He may never have thought the day would come when he'd prefer the scrubbing of bottles to cleaning his rifles, but it had come, and rarely did he ever long for the life that he and Shepard used to have. It was quiet, it was peaceful, and Spirits did they deserve it.

Quiet was never meant to last long, though, and as Garrus dried his hands off on one of the small dish towels hanging off the handle of the oven, his omni-tool flashed and pinged, the particular tone of the note alerting him to the specifics. He pressed a few of the controls until a new screen appeared, and stood absolutely still and silent, waiting for further orders. He needn't hold long, for a few seconds later the omni-tool resounded again, this time without the alert but with the soft gurgles of his younger daughter on a direct feed from her bedroom.

Garrus sighed and glanced to the time. He thought he would have had more of it before Alice woke, but like always, Trouble was always unreliable.

When he found her in the crib, Alice had rolled over onto her stomach, head and chest lifted, supported by arms below her. The presence of her father called to her, and she craned her neck a little further, not getting very far before her mouth pulled into the widest of gaping smiles a child of her age could muster. Her quiet jabbering only increased in volume at the sight of the man who had raised her thus far, and Alice became a stream of breathy and excited giggles, her body nearly bouncing where it was.

"You're in a good mood," Garrus said, returning with his own smile. Alice responded with inaudible mumbles and grew weary of the pressure on her arms, lying herself back down on her chest, feet kicking in the expression of her continued happiness at no longer being alone in the dim room. Garrus reached for her, taking Alice in his hands and drawing her to him as his forehead brushed over his daughter's in the non-verbal portion of his greeting. He settled her in at his hip, holding her to him, and asked, "it's because your sister's asleep, isn't it, Trouble?"

Unaware of the meanings to his words, Alice babbled, but Garrus took her answer as the affirmative anyway.

"Just happy to get me to yourself."

She pawed at his clothing, movements still not exactly perfected, and even set her wet and open mouth against the fabric of his shirt, chewing to her heart's content.

"Right, Dad," Garrus parroted for her as they left the girl's bedroom and walked the length of the house's interior until they reached the doorway to the back porch. Outside it was cool, not cold but not uncomfortably warm either, and the lack of humidity was something of a surprise, a rarity for the location they'd settled in. The part of Palaven he'd grown up in had been rather dry, as had also been the Normandy and the Citadel with their conditioned and scrubbed air. Even after the four and a half years that he and Shepard had made their home there on Earth, he had never quite gotten used to that near constant stickiness one encountered when outside.

He took a seat on the wicker loveseat on the deck, and there he shifted Alice from his side to his lap, letting her bare feet come to rest on his thighs while his hands held her securely around the middle. She'd gotten so big, no longer the gaunt little infant born three weeks ahead of schedule, but now the six month old grown tall and strong and chubby on her mother's milk. Alice continued to talk as she stood with her father's support, hands flexing and grabbing at the air in his direction, puckered lips sputtering with excess saliva.

"How's your tooth coming in?" Garrus questioned, and holding her with one hand, gently coaxed her chin down and mouth open a little more with the other. He could see the hint of white beneath her gum, her first tooth that had left her gnawing on any solid surface she could get her hands on. Trouble had surprised him in that regard, since her older sister had been an inconsolable mess at the cutting of her teeth, but so far Alice had taken the pain in stride. Missile to the face, first tooth, it was all the same. Alice Shepard-Vakarian was just like her old man.

"Mom's coming home today," he told her, as though she would understand. "Thank the Spirits too, because you'd have to start drinking formula soon and we both know how much you'd enjoy that."

Alice bounced on her feet and drew one of her hands to her mouth, gumming at her own fingers.

"You going to beat your sister to saying your first word? She was stubborn, didn't say a thing till her first birthday. Not you," he said conspiratorially, "you're going to surprise us."

On cue, she did her own infantile version of speaking, even with her fingers tucked inside her mouth. They were mostly vowel sounds, the same kind of nonsense she'd been at for awhile now, but every so often she would get locked in a loop of repeating the same sound, almost as if she was trying but struggling, never having the experience or motor coordination to get it out right. "Mmm, mmm," she cooed.

"No, it's got to be Dad first. Daaaad."

Alice repeated the previous sound without hesitation, disregarding her father.

"Dad. Da."

She played a good game of ignoring him, and instead stretched her hands towards her father. When he didn't move fast enough to bring her to him, the waterworks started almost instantly, all the muscles in her face contorting as eyes teared and lips pouted.

Garrus wanted to say he almost forgot how fickle such young babies could be, their moods changing at any second without warning, but Hannah, even at four years old, was still very much like her younger sister. For all their sakes, he hoped she grew out of it soon.

"Don't cry, don't cry," he repeated, trying to comfort her, and brought her against his chest where Alice gripped one hand over his cowl, her head pressed to his shoulder. Garrus stroked his hand over her scalp and did his best to take the edge off her mood. Sometimes, he knew, all they wanted was to be held. "You're alright, Alice. No tears." And just like that, the tension eased out of her. Garrus brushed his mandible against her head, scalp covered in the same color of hair as her mother and sister, and even touched his lips to her as well, mimicking the human gesture.

In his periphery, Garrus heard the oncoming approach of a skycar, which only meant one thing at their location: that someone was coming to see them, or in this case, coming home. Isolated as the house was, there wasn't truly any through traffic to pass them on by. With Alice still clutched to him, he stood and vacated the back porch, heading back inside to cut through the home. He saw Hannah on his way, still dozing on the couch though her cat with all its long white fur had curled up at the girl's feet and joined in on the afternoon nap. Even in sleep they'd become inseparable—though Garrus knew from the expression on the cat's face on occasion that the poor feline sometimes couldn't wait to get away from the terrorizing child.

His attention went back to the car he heard outside, doors and trunk being opened and closed. Garrus knew Hannah had been anticipating Shepard's homecoming—and Alice too, though she was too young to understand where her mother had gone, just that she'd be immensely happy to see her mother's face again—he had also been longing for her return home. It wasn't just the fact that he needed another adult to talk to in the flesh and not just over a comm, or that he missed sharing the responsibility of two children with her, Garrus just always missed her. He wasn't sure if she understood that—the idea that he'd missed and longed for her since they'd parted ways after the Saren investigation ran to completion—but either way, getting to have her in his arms, to hear the sound of her voice, to breathe in the smell of her not just on their pillows… well, his world would be complete again with his family all in one place.

He opened the front door of the home and the driver climbed the front steps with a pair of bags belonging to Shepard, nodding to Garrus as he stepped inside and left her things just within the entrance of the home. His attention wasn't on the driver, though, but on his charge as she shut the car door behind her. Had it only been days? It felt like weeks to him since they'd said their goodbyes on the front stoop before she'd left for Eden Prime.

They'd lingered there, forehead to forehead, her fingers alternating in grazing over his fringe and mandible, while she held Alice in her other arm. It had hurt her to leave, she'd confessed, every urge in her body telling her to forget the promises she'd made to the Council billions of miles away, and to stay with her children and the man that was her husband in spirit, though not technically on paper. Shepard had left in tears that morning, and Garrus had spent most of the day consoling Hannah, as she'd rarely been without her mother for more than a half a day at a time.

Shepard lifted her head towards where he stood and just smiled, so wide he could see her nearly laughing in excitement. In his arm, he heard and felt the exact moment when Alice spotted her mother, as the once silent child's happy sounds returned twofold while her body wriggled in his grasp, arms straining towards her mother. Garrus felt exactly like their daughter did.

"Alice!" Shepard said, just loud enough for the six month old to hear her from the short distance. "You been good for Daddy?"

Knowing full well she had her mother's attention, she jabbered increasingly, even let out a squeal of laughter in delight.

"Of course you were. And did you miss me, my baby?" Shepard asked as she ascended the steps, closing the distance between her and her husband and child.

This was why he'd missed her. He missed not just the sound of her voice, but the way she talked to their children, the way their daughters reacted just at the sight of their mother. He missed the way the breeze caught her hair, still long since she lacked the want to cut it short like it had been most of her life, and how he knew Alice couldn't wait to get her fingers in it and tug on the strands. He missed the looks she gave him, the comfort her touch was—just as he could soothe their daughters when they were troubled or needing sleep, Shepard was the kind of balm that fixed him.

She quickly palmed her daughter's cheek as Alice broke into nothing more than a fit of giggles while her mother kissed the other side of her face. Shepard then turned to him after that, releasing the same kind of offensive on him, and Garrus couldn't help it, he was reduced down to the same kind of laughter his daughter had found while Shepard brushed her mouth over his mandible and mouth. Their eyes met for the first time in days as she pulled away from him, and for a second he was lost in the color of her eyes, and the reminder of how similar Alice's were.

"I missed you," Shepard said with a smile.

"Spirits, I missed you." In his hold, Alice continued to fidget, hands opening and closing as she tried to desperately grab at her mother. "Do you want her? She's about three seconds away from exploding if you don't hold her soon," he said, offering the weight of their child over.

Shepard made no move to take her, in fact took a step back and jerked her head towards the front door. "Not yet—Garrus, I need to show you something." She slipped past him and inside.

He followed her in, though she didn't go far, and when Shepard turned back and Garrus could really take her in, he noticed the blanket tucked over and covering her left arm and shoulder. His brow plates shifted in a questioning look. "Show me what?"

Shepard didn't say anything else, but instead peeled back the fabric that had cloaked a portion of her side, exposing her arm and what was cradled in it. Garrus didn't know what he was seeing at first, since whatever it was had been wrapped in another blanket below that, barely any of it left visible. It was small and looked almost unreal, like a toy of sorts as it lay deceptively still in the crook of Shepard's arm, only its face exposed. In fact, part of him had been convinced it was just that—a child's doll—until there was the fluttering of what he now recognized as mandibles and a low whistling sound of an exhaled breath. He stiffened, gaze locked on it, and then raised his eyes to Shepard. She was watching him.

"Where—?"

"Garrus—"

"What did you do?" He asked, stricken and horrified.

"Christ, Garrus," Shepard said, firmer and louder to cut him off before he started again. "I didn't steal him!"

The baby in her arms startled awake at her voice, eyelids blinking rapidly in a state of agitated panic. And then, all of a sudden, it let out a shrill wail. A shrill wail which absolutely, completely, terrified the baby in his arms, and soon Alice joined in. Both parents independently started damage control, offering little comforts to the children like gentle bouncing and pacing. In the middle of it, Garrus glanced to the living room where Hannah slept.

"Bedroom," he said, and started walking, even as Alice continued to sob. Shepard followed wordlessly.

He thought for a moment that the short walk to their bedroom would somehow give him a chance to grasp and understand what had unfolded in the last ten seconds, but as they reached the room and he shut the door behind them, Garrus was only left worse off than he'd been. When he glanced back to Shepard, he half expected her arms to be empty, a cruel trick of his imagination—was he losing his mind? Had that disease of his mother's come for him, decades earlier than it had for her?—but the image remained the same. Shepard was pacing in front of their bed, the infant now drawn up to her shoulder as she rubbed a hand down its back, an action she'd done with both of their daughters.

"I don't…" Garrus shook his head as he watched her. "What's going on?"

Shepard sat at the edge of the bed, and after turning her head to the child and murmuring softly near its auditory canal, she looked back to him. "This is why I had to stay an extra day."

The worst of the crying had stopped, but Alice continued to whimper at the foreign sound of the Turian's more high pitched screeches, even if they'd grown softer and less panicked. He tried to ignore it, and instead focus on what Shepard was trying to explain. "It had nothing to do with Victus?"

"No, it did," she corrected. "I was at the dock, ready to head home and he'd come with me to take care of something… and that was where I met him." Her head tilted in towards the infant. "An orphan they were sending back to Palaven to try to find someone to take him in."

He didn't say anything, couldn't even form words, so he just listened as she explained.

"He never imprinted with his mother and was abandoned on Eden Prime. Victus thought… that he'd be best off with us. Garrus—Jesus—the way he was crying last night, I couldn't let him go."

"But we can't, Shepard. If we could, we would have years ago. You know this isn't something they'll allow." It had hurt for a long while to know the option of ever having a son or daughter that resembled him in even the most basic of ways would never be an option. Some parts of him still wondered what it would have been like to raise a Turian child alongside—never instead of, because now that he had his girls, he could never think of life without them—their human children.

Would it have been different? Or exactly the same? Would fatherhood feel any different? But they'd known years ago that with the way things were since the war, there wouldn't be a hope of that any time in the future. Turians, as it was, were less prone to giving their children up for adoption to strangers, not to say anything of the temporary laws that had been enacted on Palaven that were meant to protect the orphans and keep them close to home.

"We can," Shepard insisted. "Victus… he worked some things out. Garrus, he's ours." She raised an extended hand to him, urging him closer.

Garrus obeyed, his body moving of its own accord.

The baby in her arms was shifted down from her shoulder despite the dulled claws he saw gripping and pinching at the fabric of her clothing. Shepard offered sounds of reassurance to the child as he rested in her arm on his back, mandibles flaring at each audible but slowly calming protest he gave. It wast the first time Garrus really got to look at him, and as he sat down beside Shepard, his eyes were locked on the infant.

His skin and plating were paler than his own, but it would darken after puberty, most likely. He knew nothing about the child, but he could date his age to be no more than three or four weeks based on his physical features alone. He was scrawny and tiny, having not hit his first growth spurt that came in a Turian's first few months. Mandibles, likewise, were small, and his talons were near non-existent, appearing more like human fingernails. His fringe was cropped closely to his scalp, and though it would grow in childhood, he knew the majority of its lengthening would only come at puberty as well. And when he caught the boy's eyes, he saw they were more Shepard's color than his own blue.

He was tiny, but a handsome boy. Garrus' chest swelled in some kind of pride he wasn't sure he should have. Shepard's hand stroking Garrus' cheek brought him back to the moment.

"His name is Caius."

Something pulled at his heart, and Garrus felt himself passing a calmer Alice to Shepard's free arm as she allowed him to take the Turian child. He handled him with the same care and caution he'd used on his newborn daughters and his nephew, but there was a lack of familiarity with the unknown shape and weight of this baby. Caius' cries returned at the disturbance and the new scent, and Garrus reacted just as he would have for Alice, brushing the back of his fingers to the boy's head, even leaning in and whispering softly to him in hopes that it would assuage his fears.

The smell of Caius was different than his girls, perhaps something close to earthier, rather than sweeter, and despite how foreign it was, it wasn't unwelcome. Garrus shut his eyes and let himself be bathed in the scent. Beside him he could hear Shepard talking to Alice, something about 'Home for five minutes and all you want from me is to eat,' and then the sound of clothing rustling and their daughter's happy gurgles as she latched on at her mother's breast like the old pro that she was by now. Afterwards, he once again felt Shepard touching him, this time her hand at the back of his neck and head, caressing his skin. She moved closer, leaned against his side.

"He's our son," she sighed.

"I don't even know what to say," Garrus replied, finally lifting his head from the intimate closeness he shared with the boy, and looked back to his wife. "I'm dreaming."

"No," she laughed, but settled herself down when Alice whined at the commotion. "I know there's not time to adjust to it. We had more than nine months with the girls, between doctor's visits and finally getting pregnant and having them… but I didn't think we'd have the chance again."

"Why didn't you tell me? Last night, you knew when you called—why didn't you tell me then?" He was surprised by the accusation in his speech.

Shepard's face fell a little, brows furrowing together as she took her time in studying him before speaking. "I was afraid you'd say no, even after how much we've talked about it. That maybe it was just an idea to you, one that was safe since we knew we couldn't have it, or that you'd be the logical one and tell me that we couldn't, not with two children already, not with everything else."

She was right in that regard, because behind everything else he felt, those thoughts were buzzing in the back of his mind. They had two children under five, one still a baby; it would never be easy to add a third to the mix, especially when that third was another species entirely, one that neither of them had any real experience in caring for. Not to mention the fact that they made their home on Earth, and though he knew the planet was more populated by aliens than it ever had been since many had decided to settle and stay on Earth after the war, Garrus—and now this boy—would always be the extreme minority. What supplies they needed for him, they came shipped from other planets usually, and it would only be the same for Caius. It just wasn't very practical.

"And what if something changed?" Shepard whispered, "what if it fell through at the last moment? I was scared to get on the ship today, thought that someone would be waiting to take him back even with everything Victus had done. How could I tell you that after all this time, you were going to have a son—a Turian son—and then not bring home home with me?"

Her eyes were wetted with unshed tears and Garrus couldn't help but brush his hand over her cheek and through her hair to allay some of that distress. "I wish you'd told me," he said, contrary to the soft touch he gave. "I had a right to know."

Shepard's head bowed apologetically for half a breath. "If you really don't—"

"Stop it. I didn't say that. But you're not my commanding officer anymore, your word isn't law," he said wearily. "We're equal, we both make the decisions. And something this big… you should've asked."

She looked away from him and down to Alice, their daughter's eyes concentrated on her mother's face even when Shepard wasn't looking to her. A finger brushed over the girl's puffy cheek, and Garrus then saw Alice reach—albeit, with bad aim—for her mother's hand in particular, satisfied when she finally took hold on Shepard with her own little fist.

"This is what we wanted, Garrus," Shepard said, and then regarded him, "and I wasn't going to let it pass us by. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but not sorry for taking him in."

The infant at his chest made a somewhat playful cry, this one not out of distress, but more a call for attention. Both of them cast their gaze onto the baby.

"Can you tell me you're not happy?"

Garrus kept quiet, studying Caius. A son, he told himself, repeating the words in his head. A son. Two daughters and a son. He was a father to three, two human and one Turian.

Caius squirmed and Garrus readjusted him, allowing the boy to be be cradled to his chest and shoulder, just as he'd seen Shepard do when Caius had been at his worst. On instinct, the infant grasped for his adoptive father's cowl, head resting against the ridge of it as he let out a pleased purr. Content, Garrus thought as he looked down to the baby nestled into him, the boy was absolutely content for a moment.

"I felt like he was always trying to do that on me," she guessed, "just didn't have the right parts." In something akin to amazement, she spoke again, this time smoothing over the back of Caius' skull, neck, and his own tiny beginnings of a collar beneath his clothing. "He's happy, I think. Or at least just not scared out of his mind, which is an improvement in its own right."

Garrus would have to agree.

He moved in close to her, even with the baby tucked up against him, and let the harsh cut of his mouth join her softer lips. Shepard released the kind of satisfied hum into his mouth that rivaled the other comfortable sounds coming from Caius at Garrus' chest and Alice at Shepard's breast.

"Missed that too," she noted as he pulled back.

"Mmhmm."

Shepard rested her head to his shoulder, focus settled on Caius. His eyes were shut tight. "Don't be mad."

He slanted his head across the top of hers and released a long held sigh. Alice's feet thumped against his arm from the close proximity. "I'm not."

"Good."

"But you're telling Hannah."