Chapter 94: One More Gift
The greatest gifts of all
Are neither given nor received
Joy, life, friendship
These all are made
And though they may be taken away
They can never be destroyed
May 2, 2187…
Even if it marked the end of the honeymoon, Terra and Garrus both had a sense of coming home when they stepped back onto the Normandy. Naturally, they were met mostly with teasing about the week's activities, interspersed with some proper greetings. They were also met with one pleasant surprise.
"Good to see you two have had fun together," Tali beamed as they approached.
"Tali?" Terra looked at her in shock, "What are you still doing here? I thought you'd be back on Rannoch by now."
"I thought I'd take the long way there. Assuming you don't mind being my escort."
"Mind? I'd invite you to stay if I didn't think you were supposed to be off building a house."
"Oh," Solana leaned in, "speaking of happy reunions, Wrex sent a message to the ship after he got back to Tuchanka. Bakara had the kids just after he arrived, so they're expecting a visit from their Aunt Terra. Or at least from Aunt Violet."
"Kids?" Garrus asked, "Plural?"
"Krogan have babies in clutches, remember? At least, they do now."
"Guess it's a good thing the Council's open to colonization talks."
Solana smirked. "Speaking of which, you two enjoy yourselves?"
Terra rolled her eyes. "We did. And if you were trying to wind us up by using my sister for your little prank, it backfired."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she shrugged coyly.
"Oh, really?" Garrus nudged, "Should I relay in excruciating detail just how well said prank worked?"
If turians could blanch, Solana nearly did. "Please don't tell me I'm gonna regret this…"
Terra smirked to herself before setting a course for Tuchanka and heading with Tali and Violet to Tali's old bunk. Garrus watched her go then, knowing what his love would want but never ask for, followed Solana to the navigation console and helped her set up the scanners to run silent until Tuchanka and then run in overdrive all the way to Rannoch—the more distractions, the longer Tali would stay. If his sister saw what he was up to, she didn't complain, simply going along with his scheme and silently agreeing not to let Terra know what they did.
Terra certainly didn't notice, deep in conversation with her blood sister and her sister at heart. Two minutes and it was like Tali had never left. If she hadn't been getting by with the occasional long-distance call for so long, she'd think it impossible to imagine not having Tali there.
"Shame we already left the Citadel," Violet shrugged, "It would've been nice to have a girls' day with Liara and Ash."
Terra smirked in agreement, but then remembered something… "I never did ask where all these credits came from."
Violet hesitated before sighing and coming out with it: "I had EDI put some of her recordings of my performances on the extranet. I get royalties."
Terra blinked. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah. Most of it is Mom's, anyway. I was even thinking of writing some of my own, now that I know people outside the ship wanna hear me."
Terra watched her sister with sheer amazement. This was such a far cry from the scared former slave they'd been harboring all those months ago. This was more the kind of thing she would've seen her baby sister on Mindoir doing, though even then it was hard to imagine the entire galaxy hearing what made her so beloved at home. She smiled, wrapping an arm around Violet. "I can't wait to hear it."
"Honestly, neither can I," Tali agreed.
Violet leaned over to look at her. "Actually, I've been trying to learn songs from other cultures, too. I've got asari, hanar and even turian under my belt, but I can't seem to find much quarian."
Tali looked sadly aside. "We lost a lot of them during the Morning War."—the casual use of the geth's term for the exodus from Rannoch did not go unnoticed by Terra—"The geth have been trying to help us recover some of it, but the times before that are…"
"So send what they have to EDI and she can help me recreate it. It probably won't sound the same on a violin or a flute as it would on a quarian instrument, but I can give the recordings life again. Maybe inspire some new compositions."
Tali beamed when she heard this. "That…would be amazing." Appropriate, too. One sister giving them back the home-world so the other could give them back what it used to be. The entire Shepard family would be renowned on Rannoch from now on. But she would be the only one who could claim she was part of that family. She was the only quarian who would ever bear the name vas Normandy. That…that was a prize to be treasured above all others.
The three of them talked for several hours before EDI informed them they were landing on Tuchanka. They all hurried off to head out with Garrus, Liara, Ashley, James, EDI, Joker, and Solana. As soon as the doors opened, Terra found herself marveling at how different Tuchanka was to how they last saw it. The krogan had begun rebuilding the rubble, finally having a future to fight for in which it would matter. Following the pressures of maintaining peace after the war, the salarians had even taken measures to finish the repairs to the atmosphere that the destruction of the Shroud left behind, filtering out all the radiation that remained to allow the plant life in the ruins to grow throughout the rest of the world. For the first time, Terra's fingers itched to capture the horizon of the krogan home-world. Before long, it would be lively and beautiful for the first time since the krogan entered the galactic community.
Since Wrex knew they were coming, he was right there to meet them. "Shepard! Oh, right. Vakarian."
Terra smirked. "Yeah, I know, there's an adjustment period for all of us. Speaking of which, I believe you have something to show us?"
Wrex nodded. "Follow me." He led them from their landing site to the Urdnot compound.
Bakara was waiting there, smiling at the sight of the Shepard sisters. "Commander, Violet, it's good to see you again."
"Bakara," Violet beamed, "It's good to finally see you again."
Bakara noticed her crystal still hanging from a violin string around Violet's neck. She was clearly pleased to see it but said nothing about it. "And you."
"I hear you're a mother now," Liara smiled, "Congratulations."
Bakara nodded in acceptance. Then she opened a door and gestured for them to enter.
A half dozen tiny krogan were on the other side.
Violet, of course, nearly popped. Liara and Tali were almost as delighted at the sight. Even Ashley and Solana seemed amused, to say the least, and James and EDI were intrigued. Joker, of course, was Joker.
Terra struggled not to start laughing giddily herself. "Wow, Wrex. I'd call this a good start."
Wrex laughed. "So it is."
"Commander?" Bakara asked, "Would you like to hold one?"
Terra had been managing to keep her composure until then. She just barely brought herself to nod and step over so Bakara could gently place the smallest of the clutch in her arms. "Did you name them yet?"
"Yeah," Wrex answered, "That's Tusk, Korth, Nirm is the girl, Jarreck, Frawgg, and…" He gestured to the one she was holding. "…the runt is Mordin."
Terra froze when she heard this, looking at Wrex in astonishment. "Really?" She almost started laughing. "You caved?"
Wrex groaned, shaking his head as Bakara took his side. "You try arguing with this one, see how long you hold out."
Terra looked at the tiny krogan in her arms. The krogan named for the one who made his birth possible. Wherever Mordin was now, looking down on them with her other fallen loved ones, she knew he was happy to call this his legacy.
Garrus simply leaned back against the wall, taking in the scene. Here were the soldiers that saved the galaxy, playing with newborn krogan like ordinary people. Or, more accurately, like the babies' family, meeting them for the first time. It was kind of funny. And definitely the kind of thing they had been fighting for.
"I've never seen a baby krogan before," Tali said, "They're cuter than I imagined."
"You know, they kind of are," James concurred, "Look at you, little Frog."
"It is pronounced 'Frawgg,'" EDI corrected.
"…yeah, well, I can't pronounce that."
"And do I even need to state the obvious?" Joker added.
Garrus shook his head, smirking at his squad-mates. He was considering heading in himself, checking on the one that had drawn his sister's eye, when his gaze fell again on his wife. There was something about the sight of her that gave him pause. She stood there, holding baby Mordin tenderly close and smiling almost tearfully. He smiled himself to see her so happy. After the life she had lived, she deserved moments like this.
None of them really wanted to leave when the time came, but Violet was the only one who was truly vocal about it. Terra simply assured her they could come back whenever they were welcome, which Wrex assured her was any time at all, and after gently returning Mordin to Bakara's care, led them out and back to the ship to set the course for Rannoch.
Terra spent the rest of the day back in Tali's old bunk, spending as much time as she could with her best friend while she had the chance. Garrus simply stayed in the captain's cabin and waited for her, content that she wouldn't notice how Solana was now purposely delaying them. They didn't actually make any stops yet, having already spent most of the day on Tuchanka, so Terra's time with the quarian was uninterrupted.
In that time, Garrus found his mind constantly returning to the sight of Terra holding Mordin. At first, he was again happy to think of that shining joy she'd displayed at the time, wishing he had the talent to draw the moment as he'd seen it since he knew Terra wouldn't be able to do so herself. Slowly, though, he felt a doubting sorrow creep in on the reflection. If he was being honest with himself, it was only because he was trying so hard to repress that sensation that he didn't figure out immediately what the cause had to be. He finally managed to tamp it down when Terra came to turn in for the night and they fell asleep in each other's arms for the first time in this room since the wedding. He settled for sheer contentment as he drifted away with his human.
His human who had held that krogan child like he was her own.
June 14, 2187…
Saying goodbye to Tali never got any easier. They'd had a good three days with her on the ship before they reached Rannoch (thanks to a few "unexpected anomalies" that Solana had been happy to find), but they reached it all the same and had to again leave her there. They had stayed long enough to see how the geth were helping to rebuild, an astonishing sight indeed, and long enough for Terra to insist Tali call them literally all the time. Then they had left their quarian friend to help her people and gone back to guarding the galaxy.
Today, however, was dead silent in the Traverse. Terra, consequently, was simply sitting in the mess, listening to Violet practice a quarian tune Tali had sent her and flipping through her sketchbook to look back on past horizons. She had added Tuchanka to the collection, an addition that still made her smile. Whatever happened, curing the genophage had been the right thing to do, one of the few decisions she had made over the course of the war that she knew without a doubt she would stand by until the grave.
The one thing that could throw her out of her thoughts was when Violet abruptly stopped playing. She sighed. "Something still sounds wrong."
"I thought you had it," Terra told her, "It was beautiful."
"That's just it, though. I feel like I'm adding my voice to it. It's supposed to sound ethereal and ancient and—"
"—quarian?"
"…well, yeah."
Terra shook her head. "You'll figure it out. You're the best player Mindoir ever heard. And definitely our mother's daughter."
Violet smiled softly. "Shut up."
Terra smirked. Violet had always been the subject of compliments but had never been able to take them from her own family.
Violet was about to start playing again when she checked the time. "Oh, it's getting late. If I'm gonna keep going, I'd better head back to the core where EDI can make sure I'm not disturbing anyone."
Terra closed her sketchbook. "Well, if you're retreating, I'll turn in."
Violet smirked at her slyly. "All the better for some marital interaction."
Terra glared at her. "Now you shut up! You're spending too much time with Joker."
Violet simply snickered to herself before telling her sister good night and heading to her bunk in the AI core.
Terra headed for the elevator with her sketchbook in hand, muttering things along the lines of "See how I tease you when you're married…"
Garrus, as usual, was waiting for her when she got there. When he heard her come in, he dropped everything to see her in.
Terra beamed. "You know how to treat a girl, Mr. Vakarian."
He smiled. "Because I know my girl…" He kissed her. "…Mrs. Vakarian."
She didn't giggle often, but she did now. "I still like the sound of that."
"Let me know when it wears off, I'll step up my game."
Terra gave him a look as she went to set her sketchbook down on the table by the couch. "We've been in the honeymoon phase for a good two years now and we had a pretty fantastic actual honeymoon. I think you're set for a good long while, love."
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the honeymoon," Garrus said, closing the shutters over the viewing glass above their bed, "There was one sky I've always wanted to see that we didn't do that night."
Terra smiled, already coming to lie down on the bed. "Go ahead, then."
Garrus lied down beside her, turning on his omni-tool to call up the star chart projection. Then he adjusted for the parallax of one very specific planet.
Terra froze when she saw it, her smile gone entirely. She knew these stars better than any other. She'd grown up under them. She hadn't seen Mindoir's constellations in nearly 20 years. Seeing them now, even with Garrus beside her, she nearly started to cry.
Garrus noticed, of course. "Are you OK? Should I turn it off—?"
"No," she said, taking his hand before he could reach for the projection controls. She still felt like crying as she looked at them, but it wasn't out of grief or regret. It felt more like homesickness. "…I didn't realize how much I missed them."
Garrus understood. So he took her hand and simply watched with her. "Where's your Starbird?"
She smiled and pointed it out. "Right there." Then she turned from tearful to thoughtful. "Huh. I haven't seen it in nearly 20 years and I still know how to find it."
It didn't surprise him. That constellation only a Shepard would know had been a key feature of her childhood, the inspiration for her favorite song. A symbol of her whole life, in a way—the one she chose, the one she lived…the one she lost. "Have you ever considered going back?"
She gave him a curious look. "Why? They've completed rebuilt it. There's nothing there I could go back to."
"They also built a memorial. You could pay your respects—"
"I don't need a grave to do that. Besides, I've made my peace with the loss, I've got Violet back, and neither of us needs to see what's become of our colony and reopen old wounds." She sighed, turning her gaze back to the projected stars. "This is all I needed."
He was content to know she was happy this way, staying close to her as they drifted to sleep under the sky she grew up below.
She woke up first the next morning. For a few minutes, she simply lied there, resting peaceful in her husband's arms. When she did finally get up, she sat there and started writing something into her omni-tool. Laying her hand on his whenever she got stuck, she typed up the first draft of a poem she'd been pondering over for a while.
The greatest treasure I have seen
Is not gold or jewels that shine
The greatest treasure I have found
Is the one whose heart is mine
My treasure walked through bloodied fields
To find a single, broken soul
He brought it from beneath the shadows
To bring it home and make it whole
When I was lost, my treasure found me
Gave me hope and a new life
He gave me strength yet did not know
That one day I'd become his wife
Eyes of sapphire, heart of gold
Still more precious for his scars
Knowing I needed a spark of light
He reached to give me my lost stars
There were more stanzas to come, a full rhyming narrative of how much he meant to her. When she'd finished it, she planned to couple it with a painted recreation of the drawing they'd done together in the hospital, a masterpiece she would set aside as her first anniversary present to him. Something to show him how important he was to her, something she couldn't express in any other way. She wasn't sure yet when she'd find the time to work on it since he was always right there, but that was an issue for later.
Just as she saved her progress to complete later and closed her omni-tool, she was met with a message from EDI, carefully lowered in volume so as not to disturb the still sleeping Garrus, to meet Liara at her earliest convenience. Terra nodded, giving a quick kiss to Garrus' scars before readying herself to head down to the XO office.
Liara beamed when she saw Terra enter. "I have some good news."
"Well, it's been long enough since I got to hear that sentence," Terra nodded, "What have you got?"
"Remember I said my present for your wedding wasn't ready yet? It is."
Terra gave her a look of anticipation. "And what is it?"
Two minutes later, a stunned Terra rushed out of Liara's office, telling EDI to set a course for the Citadel. "Good news" had been an understatement.
September 26, 2187…
Garrus had been lost in thought over a particular algorithm in the battery when he started hearing Violet's music through the walls. Considering how thick the walls were, he wouldn't have been able to if he wasn't a turian, but he was, so he did. He could tell it was her violin, yet he didn't recognize the tune. At first, he had curiously pressed his ear to the wall, just barely able to catch the somber tones of the melody. Then he had found he was too distracted to work and left the battery to go to the med bay. Chakwas wasn't there at the moment, so he was free to simply lean against the wall by the door to the AI core and listen. From here, even with the door closed, he could hear it plainly. Ethereal, emotional…
Oh. So this was what quarian music sounded like. It was beautiful. No wonder she wanted to recreate it.
He listened until the notes faded out. When he was sure she was done, he knocked and walked in.
Violet smirked as she put her violin away. "I assume you were listening."
He simply sat down next to her. "Tali is going to love it."
"I hope so. This is a big deal, I want to make sure it's perfect. The geth are even sharing a lot of their records of quarian history, so maybe we can recreate some of their instruments and put these songs back where they belong." She smiled as she closed her violin case. "In ten years, Rannoch will be a wonder to see."
Garrus couldn't help but agree. Between the reconstruction of the architecture they'd glimpsed on Haestrom, the art and music Violet and the geth were offering a chance to restore, and how quickly the quarians were readjusting to their home environment (with the geth's infection-replicating help) to allow them to live without masks…it really would be. He couldn't wait to see it. Though he knew Violet, Terra, and especially Tali herself were dying to see it even more than he was.
"Garrus?" Terra's voice came over his COMM.
"Need something?" he asked when he answered.
"Just come up to the cabin when you've got a minute. I need to tell you something."
Though he was curious what exactly she might be up to, he hung up and turned his attention back to Violet. "Was EDI recording you?"
"She usually does," Violet shrugged.
"You might have her go ahead and send it to Tali now. Sounds perfect to me."
Violet answered with a thoughtful look. "I might. But I don't think I will. I kind of want to play it for her myself next time we visit."
He nodded. She would want it played properly for the first time in the place it was meant for, for the people it belonged to. Quarians and geth alike would certainly appreciate the gesture.
She finally set her violin case aside and retrieved her flute. "Well, I should probably keep practicing and maybe work on my composing, if Terra needs you."
"Right. Play on."
"Always."
Garrus left more slowly than he normally would, catching the first few notes from her flute on the way out. Then he headed for the elevator, distantly noting the way the rest of the deck took in the now familiar sound, and went straight to deck one.
Terra was at her desk when the door opened. As he walked in, she leapt to her feet. "You got here fast."
"I'm at your beck and call, love," he smirked, taking her hand, "What did you need?"
She held up a paper. "Liara came through on that belated wedding gift."
He gave her a curious look as he took the paper. "Five months belated. What was she doing?" Glancing at the paper didn't answer the question, especially when he saw it was a medical chart. "What was she doing?!"
She took a step back. "Giving us the one thing we never hoped to ask for."
His confusion only deepened, prompting to finally turn all his attention to the paper and read it. He didn't understand all of it, a lot of biological terms referring to…human and turian DNA? He kept scrolling down the paper. Research progress, treatment modalities—he didn't really get it until he got to the end and saw results for a test run on his Terra two days ago.
Tests that were positive.
Positive…for…
Garrus froze as the realization kicked in, more disbelief than he'd ever felt in his life coming upon him all at once. "…you…you're really…?!"
Terra smiled, tearful with sheer delight as she nodded.
Confusion gave way to shock which gave way to utter elation. He finally took his wife gleefully in his arms, both of them beyond overjoyed at this last dream that had finally been allowed to come true for them.
…they were having a baby.
