He's got her upper arm in a firm grip, and she grits her teeth against the pain it causes in her broken shoulder. She's got medigel slathered all over it, but he knows firsthand that it only blocks so much of the pain.
"Listen, Shepard," he says.
All his superiors can see is a tattooed punk with no fucking respect. They see a delinquent whose only record is a sketchy medical history from the free clinic run by the base. All that contains is a log of broken bones, lacerations, and abortions.
Anderson sees a petite gangster who got caught trying to steal an officer's gun. He sees a girl who got a broken arm and a bruised face when the officer tried to take her to task. He sees an Alliance officer with missing teeth getting treated for a black eye. Broken nose. Cracked cheekbone. Dislocated wrist. Broken ribs. Broken fingers. Bruised knee.
He goes out on a limb for her, and his superiors only agree because he's bet his career that she'll be a good investment.
He tells her that she's got two options. She can go to prison, since she insists she's eighteen, for assaulting an officer of the Alliance Navy. Nobody can find any records on her, so they can't disprove her age, even though he knows she's not fooling anyone.
He'd bet on just sixteen, at the oldest.
Or, he tells her, since she insists she's eighteen, she can enlist. It would be at least a year, more likely two, he says, before she gets an assignment. She'll get surgically implanted with a bio-amp, and she'll undergo some gene therapy. They'll have to run more tests on her than they would a normal recruit, since she's got no paperwork on her history.
Her eyes dart around nervously, taking in him, the sheepish injured officer, the other soldiers in the room.
He hopes she enlists. She's still a damned kid, but she's survived on the street since was six, apparently. He feels a bit guilty for not trying harder to find her when she disappeared. If she can kick a Sergeant's ass with no formal training, imagine how deadly she'll be with some instruction. She's a scrawny teenager, but she's a gang leader's right hand. Hell, just the fact alone that she can use biotics with no amplifier should have the Alliance begging her to join.
She jerks her arm from his hold. Blood smudges her forehead. Her split lip has turned an ugly shade of purple. Her blue eyes stand out sharply against her dirty skin, and they stare him in the eye.
She gives him an imprecise salute, wincing at the pain in her collarbone.
She'd better be one hell of an investment, they tell him.
During the party after the ceremony, he works his way slowly through the crowd. He stops frequently to offer congratulations, occasionally to offer condolences. He's looking for Shepard, among others, but everyone's in their dress blues. They start to look the same, especially from across the room. She's not the only marine he's recommending, but he's betting the most money on her making it all the way to seven.
He finds her among her squad, all toasting Kyle as he shyly shows off his Star of Terra. Good. All the commissioned officers in the unit have gotten a recommendation from someone or another, and he can tell them all at once. He's got a pretty long list to get through. The celebrating marines refill their shot glasses as someone starts to make another toast, but they fall silent when they catch sight of Anderson. The group salutes him, and it's only a slightly drunken gesture all around. Most of them have abandoned their jackets, and some of them have rolled up their sleeves. Shepard's undone her top few buttons, and the tattoos on her biceps and shoulders are visible through the thin fabric.
Anderson plucks a full glass out of a soldier's hand and raises it towards the mass of the group. He names off the nominated officers present, nodding to each in turn. He tells them they've been asked to join the N7 program. They begin classes in two weeks. He holds out his shot glass, and waits for someone to complete the toast.
All of them are stunned. They look at back and forth between each other, but no one moves. Finally Shepard grins, pulling at the scar on her cheek. It spans from cheekbone to jaw, and it's pink and shiny with new skin. She slams her glass against his, and they toss back the booze. It burns nicely down his throat, and he thinks absently that the Alliance isn't sparing any expense for this particular celebration.
He salutes the group, then turns away, looking for more people on his list. He's still got a lot of officers to get through.