Chapter 9: Counting
David found quiet. It was so alien. It was welcoming and yet frightening for such stillness was unrecognizable.
"Square root of 906.01 is 30.1." came a muffled voice from under the soft fleece blanket. Something for which the very hyper-sensitive skin of the still healing flesh of the young man was very appreciative. His time in the contraption had left him in an extremely vulnerable state not simply his mind, but his body was particularly weakened.
The flesh was not unlike the skin long left under bandages, pale and exceptionally sensitive to touch, even the kiss of the air was not a pleasant experience. So much so Dr. Chakwas had taken great care to prescribe not only a series of Medigel injections but she had used a new bio-synthetic treatment which acted as a surrogate skin: developed by Hahne-Kedar called KloraDerm which incorporated chlorophyll to provide the patient with an extra source of energy and to optimize the body's use of both oxygen and carbon dioxide. Of course it made David's skin carry a slight green tone to it.
KloraDerm was meant to speed the recovery rate of patients who had allergic reactions to Medigel. But it also sped-up recovery reactions in burn victims or those with hyper-allergic skin reactions or...those forced to live their lives within environmental suits.
People who wore such suits like Tali, their skin became extremely sensitive to the air when exposed to it. Thus KloraDerm became very popular amongst the quarian and even volus when they shed their suits. Though the latter only used the treatments when in methane environments.
Dr. Chakwas had a very healthy supply of KloraDerm for Tali's personal use. It was a part of the young Engineer's herbal supplements she used so that she might share intimate time with her husband. Now the alternative treatment was aiding a very special young man climb his way back to full health.
However the skin was not the only issues Dr. Chakwas faced to bring David back from his dilapidated state. The muscles in David's arms and legs had atrophied during his forced stay within AI interface. Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) was an easy answer to rectify the issues raised by the needs to rehabilitate the muscle groups. The impulses are generated by a device and are delivered thought electrodes on the skin near the muscles being stimulated. The pads' impulses mimicked the action potential that comes from the central nervous system, causing the muscles to contract.
Along with the Medigel, KloraDerm and NMES, Chakwas was also forced to use a post-digestive NEM (nutrient extractor and maximizer) device on the young man. The device drew energy from the fortified nutritional supplements. It was an extremely helpful device created by the quarians for those who went on their Pilgrimages. After all Pilgrims more often than not found themselves eating turian nutrient pastes through emergency induction port (or to anyone else...a straw) rather than the common processed meals consumed in the mess halls of Flotilla.
David's body was in a far too fragile state to digest solid foods but the NEM took care of this factor. By the time they reached Grissom Academy, David would be out of medical danger, though he would still need the medical regimes of consuming nutritional supplements and the KloraDerm.
"Square root of 912.04 is 30.2." David muttered softly. His throat was still very sensitive; it hurt as if he were suffering from strep throat. He could talk without the aid of an AI communications system, so that was something of a positive note.
"Square root of 918.09 is 30.3"
"How you keep all those numbers in your head I don't know." a voice scoffed good-naturedly from the door of the medlab.
"I like numbers. Numbers show everything."
"Guess so." Jack half shrugged.
David turned to the newcomer. This was not the voice of the kindly white-haired doctor that fussed over him like the mother he scarcely remembered, or the gentle inflection of Commander Shepard. Instead he saw a bald headed woman with a body so heavily tattooed it was like the ink resembled a shirt. He was mesmerized by the lines and colors and patterns and kept staring.
Jack was used to this, most of the time she either ignored it or chided the person staring at her with a more than a scathing-scalding sneer. However this kid's stare was different. It was like he was trying to figure out her ink with all those crazy numbers milling around in that skull of his and map it. It felt strange.
"So Kiddo, how you holding up?"
David frowned, blinked several times and realized that he was the person called Kiddo because there was no one else in the room. He sorta liked being called Kiddo.
"The patches make my muscles twitch. Dr. Chakwas said it is to make them work properly again. I don't like the taste of the paste I have to eat. It tastes of old crackers. Dusty."
"Hey, I get that. Maybe I can spike it for you." Jack smirked.
"I don't think I can eat a spike." David said matter-of-factly.
"No, I mean...ah...make it have some flavour." Jack rubbed the growing stubble on her head. She forgot the kid probably took everything literally. She recalled something she read who-the-fuck-knew-when that those with autism had very little understanding of metaphors and even less of euphuisms.
"Yes. I would like that."
"Cool. I'll see what I can do for'ya and still make sure you can eat the gloop." Jack looked at the kid and saw a lot of similarities between her and him. Both deeply scarred by Cerberus, in and out. Fucking Cerberus. God she hated them. Hated all of them. At least the Cheerleader was starting to turn. What Miri said and did to that fucking Archer was beautiful then those parting words...perfect.
'Shepard has a bullet waiting for you. And she will use it. Mark my words. I don't. I have something far more dangerous. I have a Jack.'
Jack smirked Yeah you do. And I won't be nice and let you breathe when I get my hands on you. Her dark eyes fell upon David. That kid didn't deserve what Cerberus did to him. Then again nobody deserved what Cerberus did to them.
Every time Jack closed her eyes she kept seeing the kid hanging no bolted into that metal monstrosity it like some Christ-figure and all those tubes running in his mouth, wires running in and out of his body. Fucking nightmare. How the kid slept...Jack didn't know. Maybe he didn't, not really. Maybe Chakwas drugged him and kept the nightmares away. Jack knew there were drugs that could do that. Sometimes she took them just so she could sleep for a few hours without the memories of her time in Teltin or the things that happened after.
The rapes at the hands of the pirates who 'rescued' her after she ran from Pragia, the Cult, those two assholes who fucked her in more ways then between the sheets. Lessons she was supposed to have mastered at Teltin, a fellow student she was supposed to have snuffed out because the Needle Men made her. The screams of people she ripped apart with her biotics, the screams of her lost lovers, lovers whose faces she had tattooed on her arm. The murders she carried out and those she wished she had. And always in the background of those dark dreams were the intersecting diamonds of Cerberus.
The true nightmares were harsh, rambling confused affairs. In them she became unstuck in time. In those she would go to sleep on her cot and then wake up with a chilling jerk in the future as if she had fallen through a trapdoor into her body. As if she were riding around in her head like a ghost. She hated those dreams. There was nothing, nothing worse than being buried alive in your own skin.
And now thanks to what that frigging Doctor Gavin Archer did to him, David was plagued with those same damned nightmares. The all those deaths of the frigging-even-if-they-deserved-it Cerberus assholes because of the geth. Because his damned brother didn't or wouldn't hear the desperate pleas: "QUIET! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"
The moment of silence between the two survivors lasted only two heartbeats but seemed longer. Jack took a step forward, grabbed the back of Chakwas's rolling desk chair and pulled it to the boy's bedside and sat down.
She didn't even know why she was doing it. She wasn't a people person. She sure as hell wasn't a warm person. But here she was sitting at a tortured boy's bedside looking at a reflection of herself. Doing what? What was she doing? Why was she doing this….?
"You don't wanna talk about the shi…crap that happened to you. I get that. I don't either. So ah…other than math, whadda like? Vid-games? I gotta few on my omni tool. Galaxy of Fantasy is cool. But I got this old fashioned retro game from back in the Twentieth called Fallout Four. The graphics aren't as good as we have now but it's still good, well for a retro game it is. I mean it's the fourth of the series but you don't have to play the other three to get the idea. I sorta like the female Lone Survivor best. Or we could watch a sim."
David smiled. He didn't know about Galaxy of Fantasy. Actually he didn't play a lot of vid-games; he understood the code too much and won far too easily. Or at least the games his brother gave him to play when he was still very young. He figured them out in minutes. Saw the patterns, saw the code and won and was board. Gavin never gave him RPGs, apparently the thought never occurred to him to do. Or he believed David's attentive reaction wasn't capable of following the storyline or keep up with the plot points.
David paused…and frowned. "I don't know your name." he blushed. "Your painted skin is pretty. How did you paint it?"
Jack choked back a laugh. "It's an app on omni tools, though some are old fashioned needles and ink I got in prison."
David repulsed and his brown eyes went blank. Jack could have kicked her scrawny ass. Hell she had issues with needles too. Well those attached to a syringe. It was too soon for the Kid.
"Fuck me." Jack cursed winced. "I mean….um…damn…look sorry about the swearing Kiddo. I'll try to keep it clean with you. "
David frowned then nodded. "Clean? You mean your words."
Jack rubbed the back of her neck and only nodded. "Yeah. So ah…the name. I go by Jack."
"Jack." David repeated. "I like it."
"Beats Subject Zero."
"Zero. It is absolute. It is a central role in mathematics as the additive identity of other integers, real numbers and many other algebraic structures." David said almost blandly. "Minus zero equals plus zero equals zero they are the same. There is no positive or negative zero. Zero exists as an absolute."
Jack considered this. The thing that struck her to the core was that zero wasn't a negative. Almost always the ex-convict had thought of Zero as something as a negative. It meant nothing. Had no power. What was so good about being a zero? How could being a zero be good? But hearing the little math genius explain the power of zero…Jack didn't mind it so much. Well she did but now only because Cerberus had given it to her. But still zero wasn't bad.
…Jacqueline Naught…her nom de plume for writing poetry had a lot more power.
"So sim or vid-game?" Jack asked redirecting the boy's thought. "I've got 'Husks 2: Awl Justice', it's a teen-survival/horror/legal-thriller thing." she looked at David. "Okay not that, meh, space-zombies kind get boring after awhile anyway. Besides I fight enough of those fuc…guys on the ground as it is. Got a girl-power slayer vs vamps: Bloody Mary or…
"Well, let's see. 'Vaenia'…um no… you're way way too young, for that one. Too young for 'The Demon and the Nightmare', too and well 'Ruck Humpers' It's a really funny krogan war comedy…yeah no, not that one… its humor isn't well for everyone. Especially for kids. Got a lot of anime but definitely not for...well under eighteens. "And Ghost in the Shell is for now way to close to home. So not that one."
"Kay stuff a kid can watch….oh! I know! I have 'Taze Patterson: Part 1: The Beginning.' It's ah…a disaster/action flick/coming-of-age story." Again Jack shook her head upon seeing David's grimace. "Nope. Yeah it was a sort of cheese grater for the senses anyway. Kay how 'Nekyia Corridor'? Everyone likes that series."
David shook his head.
"Not a big space opera fan then. Fine, how about a bad-boy rogue cop flick? I've got a pirated copy of 'Blasto: the Jellyfish Stings'…just um …don't tell anyone. It's not exactly legal. Know what I'm saying?"
David was placid. "I'll play a game."
Jack then nodded, "Yeah okay, a game. Which one?"
"Yours." He paused. "I won't have take control over robots?"
"Naw. But there's a robot NPC pal called Cogsworth. He's pretty handy" Jack laughed at a private joke or perhaps it was more of a pun. Realizing David wouldn't understand the jest she offered a wry shrug. "Okay we'll fire it up. It's not co-op. So….we'll sorta play together as one character."
"One."
After a pause Jack waited for whatever was the square root of whatever triple digit number he was about to rattle off. When he didn't, Jack blinked. She asked: "One what?"
"The days Commander Shepard lengthened my life." He blushed and was unable to meet Jack's large beautiful brown eyes. They really were very beautiful and so were her very full lips. Because he couldn't help but think about them, or how soft they must be if he touched them with is own. "And the number of days I have a friend." He blushed even more fiercely, if at all possible.
Jack suddenly realized why the ckid was blushing so brightly making it look as if his cheeks were on fire. The ex-convict was very grateful that she was wearing the leather top and jacket Shepard had purchased for her back on the Citadel and not just the tit straps she wore when she first became part of the Spectre's merry crew.
Granted Jack exploited the sexual desires she felt in cock-hard guys or even the dykes but this…well….The kid was a kid!…and Jack was many things but never ever a pedophile. Those fucking shit-heads deserve to be dissembled and spaced with their guts leaking out of them as they were.
No need to fuel other sort of dreams for this kid. Still it felt sorta cool to be someone's first crush. Jack was never ever been that to anyone. And it was harmless enough, even if it felt weird because…to the kid she kinda felt like…like…well…like a big sister. And she knew from Miri's words what was expected of a big sister. And that was exactly what Jack would become. A big sister.
Miri's words once more floated into Jack's mind.
'You're the older sibling. That gives you one job with your brother. Just one. You look out for him. Protect him. Keep him safe! You do whatever it takes to insure that. If you have to sell your soul to the Devil to make it happen, to work as his right hand you do it! You are your brother's keeper.'
Jack pondered those words deeply and decided then and there to be the Kid's keeper, to be what Archer wasn't… She'd become the man-boy's protector. And…then and there…Jack knew what her hate-lover was saying back at that fucking base. Oh she knew on an academic level that the Cheerleader served Cerberus not just because she was a blind loyalist. Miri served the Devil that called himself The Illusive Man, to save her baby sister.
Jack would be damned back into Cerberus clutches serving as a mindless slave if she allowed the kid to be exploited or used by Grissom Academy. She sure as hell wasn't going to let that happen. And considering they also taught biotic kids-well that had to be investigated too.
Shepard had a tendency to be sorta blind to Alliance goings on. And even if the Alliance ran the Academy didn't mean Cerberus didn't have their ugly fingers dipped deep into it. After all didn't QOTGS admit as much? A sleeper agent had infiltrated the Academy and tried to extract a girl that Cerberus purposely crated to be the next Subject Zero. Jack would be damned if she was going to allow that to happen again. And Jack would be damned if Cerberus got their clutches back on the Kid.
Jack made a vow then and there: after all this shit…ahum….crap…with the Collectors was over she'd get involved with Grissom Academy however she had to.
"Okay….retro games it is. Fallout Four, then. Well then let's make our Lone Survivor. What should she look like? The default appearance or…custom?"
"Custom. She should have some hair on her head…with a ponytail….but shaved at the sides of her head. She'll be pretty." David said and blushed fiercely once more. "Can she have painted skin? And…soft lips? Large brown eyes?"
"Yeah…um…yeah….there's a mod for that…." Jack smiled and then shrugged as if to signify she used said mods on her personal games. "Hell there are a lot of mods…I'll show you some of the cooler ones."
David smiled.
ME~ME~ME~ ME~ME~ME~ ME~ME~ME
Two.
Three.
Shepard woke with start at the pounding on her door. With a groan she turned over and glared at the space beyond the bedroom. If it was a ship's emergency she would have been alerted via EDI or even Joker if he was at the helm.
"Who's at the door?" murmured a very sleepy Spectre to the ever present EDI.
"A very aggregated Jack, Commander." the AI answered.
Sitting up Shepard, raked her fingers through her dark hair causing it to become a bit more unruly than the 'bedhead' she normally sported after waking.
THUD. .
"A moment." Shepard called towards the door. Tossing the blankets aside Shepard reached for a silken black robe and shrugged it over her N7 boxers and strappy tee-shirt. Then went into the head took a bottle of mouthwash tipped back the bottle and took a swig then spat it out to clear the morning breath before she decided she was partially presentable.
THUD.
Cracking the tenseness in her shoulders she went to the door and allowed it to swoosh open. Without preamble Jack pushed her way past the older woman and started to pace the 'office' area of her quarters.
"Come in." Shepard shrugged at the empty space beyond her door of her quarters. She turned and watched her 'guest' continue to pace back and forth in front of the fish tank. "Want to let me in on what's got you so…." Shepard paused and finally decided on the adjective, "uppity?"
"Yeah, you gotta do it. Cuz' I can't."
"Come again?"
"I'm an ex-con."
"Yes…"
"Even if you did get me acquitted or pardoned or whatever your fancy Spectre status got me. But …it ain't gonna be enough." Jack looked to the older woman as if her words said it all.
"Jack, not that I don't mind this impromptu visit well I do, I was actually getting some good shut eye for once, and that's not exactly been easy for me this past year. But that's beside the point; you want to give me a clue here, because I'm a little lost without some navpoint in this conversation."
"Right. Okay. Fine. The thing is…well shit…David. He's still a kid. I think like sixteen or something. Not adult enough, ya know? Makes him a ward of the fucking state. Even if he's at that Academy of yours he's going to be in the System. Which makes him vulnerable to Cerberus. They'll just get their clutches on him again even at Grissom Academy. But not if he had say a foster parent. You know-a proper guardian. But it can't be me. But it can be you. Well you and your Blue."
Shepard was wide awake now. She stared at Jack. Dumbfounded.
"You gotta Shepard! Saving him from his fucking brother might work, but come on, you're smart, and you know as well as me that TIMmy won't let someone that valuable go."
If anyone knew that was true Jack did. Cerberus was constantly hunting her. And the only reason they had let go of Gillian Grayson was because the girl who would be the next Subject Zero was with the quarian Flotilla. Jack was right; David would never be free from Cerberus not unless he had protection. The sort of protection that having a Spectre and a highly respected information broker and daughter of a prominent Thessian family as guardians offered.
Shepard moved to the lounge section of her quarters which was in truth was nothing more than a horseshoe shaped sofa and a square table. Still it served its purpose as a 'common area'. A neutral space, despite the fact that only five steps away was the more intimate area of the double bed.
Shepard sat down heavily on the black leather cushions of the couch and sighed. "Jack…that's….a heavy request."
The younger woman scowled. "Yeah, I know. Okay. And a big one. Look when you press-ganged me into this whole mission with the Collectors I said I had a price…I got to look at Cerberus files and you got me to Teltin so I could blow that whole fucking thing up. I won't ever forget you did that for me. And I might be out of favors with you. But…Shepard…you can't let Cerberus get him."
"I won't." Shepard answered. "They won't take him. Not again."
"But you can't promise that!" Jack's voice grew sharp and desperate. "Not…not unless you foster him. No court will ever let me do it. We both know it, I'm too fucked up to be anyone's Mom. So you and Blu…um I mean Liara have to." Jack moved cat-like to the other side of the sofa and then plunked down just as heavily as Shepard had. The ex-con's spine withered like a popped balloon. She cast her gaze down at her shoes, she held her hands together which hung just as limp between her legs.
It took a moment to for Shepard to realize Jack was crying…she was actually crying! The Spectre opened then closed her mouth. This was awkward; Sam never imagined she would ever see this sort of outpouring emotion spilling from the more mercurial younger woman.
What on earth could she say that wouldn't sound patronizing or condescending or worse pity so in the end she said nothing. She simply allowed Jack her privacy and the moments she'd need after to collect herself.
The dark mascara Jack coated her long eyelashes with created rivets of black lines down her cheeks. Quietly the Commander rose and went to the head and came back with a handful of tissues and just as silently placed them on the table in front of the younger woman.
Without a word Jack begrudgingly took the tissues and wiped her face and winced when she saw the dark streaks staining on the disposable hankies. She glanced to Shepard and saw nothing of pity in those blue eyes, nor did she see any of the other hated emotions such as judgment she dreaded to see in the reflected in those eyes.
There was no need to guess what images that haunted Jack's mind as they haunted Shepard's as well. Both women saw David strung up in that accursed contraption with hoses, wires and bolts violating the boy's body. Those cruel clamps pulling the eyelids back, making it impossible for David to blink, the tears that streamed down his pale cheeks, and the desperate pleas of a terrified child. And elder Archer's callous response to this horror was to simply say that David would become 'a well-cared for lab rat…'
If Archer considered stringing his brother up like some crucified victim as well cared for Shepard hated to think what Archer thought of as brutality.
"I'll talk to Liara," came a soft response from the dark haired Commander as she retook her seat opposite Jack. "But you're right as a ward of the State, David is vulnerable. I make this promise to you Jack, I won't let that happen."
Jack mutely nodded. Her throat still far too tight to speak with any confidence. After a moment she said: "I didn't cry."
A shake of the head. "No, of course not. You can use the head to ah…wash your face if you want." Another awkward pause. "Beer?"
"Yeah." the answer was followed by the splashing of water.
Shepard went back to the small office area and opened the tiny bar fridge she had stashed under the L shaped desk and pulled out two green glass bottles. She popped the caps and left the little metal disks on the desk and came back into the lounge area. Silently she handed Jack one of the bottles as she came out of the head. Shepard sat back down before taking a health swig of own.
Jack nearly drained hers in one go. "I have to ask, how come you didn't smash that fucktard into little pieces."
"How come you didn't?" Shepard shot back taking another swig of her beer.
There was a shrug. "I wanted to, I really did. Before I met you I would have. It would have been justice."
"It would have." Shepard agreed.
"Now you."
"I wanted to." Shepard repeated the answer she had received. "David deserves justice. So does Archer, the harshest. The final sort. Had David not been watching me, I would have done so. Torn Archer apart with a warp field so powerful…" a grim smile slid snake like over her face, as she borrowed a line from her wife, "what was left of him would have fit in a coffee mug. And I would have slept well that night. Trust me Jack, I sure as hell wanted to. As a Spectre I might have even gotten away with it even out here in the Terminus Systems, where truthfully I don't have any such jurisdiction." Shepard looked once more at Jack and paused before she took another sip from her bottle and then said: "So truth. Why didn't you turn Archer into paste?"
Jack didn't have an answer. At the time she was too shocked to see Miri take out her anger of the scum sucker and then…the words. 'I have something far more dangerous. I have a Jack.'
"I don't know." it was a vapid answer but it was the truth. Why hadn't she?
I have something far more dangerous. I have a Jack.' It had been those words that had jolted Jack out of her heated reactionary rage so much so that Jack was struck dumb. And she felt…well she didn't know what she felt…warm? Proud? Fuck it, it was complicated.
Four.
Five.
"So….I have a proposal for you Angel Eyes." Sam said looking at her bondmate's holographic image that was projected on the screen that slid up and covered the model ship collection. She took in a heavy breath. And then she started to outlay the whole mission of stopping Project Overlord. Shepard added the images of the battles and how they found David.
These were the same images Shepard had included in her report to the Council as well as to Admiral Hackett and one Captain Hanna Shepard. Councilor Anderson would have course gained the footage along with the info-package Shepard had sent along with her reports. Then she spoke of the vulnerable position the boy was still in and what could be done about it.
*Goddess. What that man did to his own brother, what he allowed Cerberus to do to the boy. I can't imagine why you allowed this Dr. Archer to yet live. Surely Justicar Samara or even Jack would have killed him if you did not.*
"Killing Archer however much I wanted to wasn't the priority at the time, getting David out of that thing was." A pause…."So what do you think about you know taking him in? It will only be for a couple of years until he's of legal age. And for the most part David will be at the school. After that….well we'll just keep an eye out for him. Help him find his way in life. Pretty sure Jack will too. This was her idea after all."
Adoption? And what does the boy think of this?* Liara asked giving no hint in her tone that indicated her thoughts on the matter. *Have you spoke to him about it?*
"Not yet. I wanted to get your input first."
Liara pursed her lips into a thin calculating line. She seemed delve deeper into her mind her right hand absentmindedly rested over the great swell of her belly. Only in the private security of her own home did the Prothean Expert allow her pregnancy to show. While in her office Liara normally used a holo-disguise to hide the pregnancy, not that any asari would think less of the pregnancy but other races were not so generous in their assessments of a pregnant woman sitting in an office. They would have believed her weakened and thus the fear and respect Liara had very carefully cultivated would have waned.
*It will be easier to foster the child ourselves. I can start the paperwork here on Nos Austra. Even as a silent benefactor…I can make it happen but to sponsor Jack as a foster parent….that will take some doing. She will have to be seen as fit for that kind of responsibility. She'd have to see an accredited psychologist.*
Shepard smiled. "Good thing I already have one on board the Normandy."
*One that works for Cerberus.*
"Worked for." Shepard corrected
*Yes and that complicates things, Muinthel.* then Liara's lips smiled. *There has been a lot of adoptions and offerings of fosterage due to the horrific destruction of the Kingu comet's wake. Of course if we went through the newer organization called The Shepards, I might just push the fostering though a faster rate, especially if its founder sees your name on the paperwork.*
The Alliance's Red Cross, the turians' Lifebearer Brigade, the independent Shepards, the hanar organization: Healing Waters and hundred of other charities organizations galaxy-wide had been extremely active pledged their support to housing and feeding the uncountable refugees of the planet of Belen—a hanar colony.
Shepard tried not to be bitter about how the galaxy rushed to help the hanar colonists yet had turned their backs on the dozens of human colonies torn apart by the Collectors. The Council declared time and again they could not act because the human colonies targeted were far outside their jurisdiction—being in the Terminus Systems.
Did the Council not care this seeming betrayal for a cry for help was surging the recruiting lines for Cerberus or hell Terra Firma?
Then of course there were the terrorist attacks on Taetrus. A turian colony. The colony's capital Vallum had been hardest hit. Indeed the Vallum Blast had caused a great deal reaction within the great galactic community of Council Space. Not only had the several charities reacted so had the private citizenship, which included people stepping up to adopt and foster many of the lost children caught up in the conflict.
*My Love, I must ask you this. Do you actually believe Jack is capable of the responsibilities that come with being a parent…a guardian over someone as vulnerable as David?*
"Before destroying her demons at the Teltin facility I would have said no. But she's changed, still changing. She and Lawson had Archer in a private area, outside David's line of sight. And Archer walked out alive. That wouldn't have happened a month ago. And Jack's spent a lot time with the kid. Hours playing a game."
*Samantha….* smiled her wife, *being a good playmate isn't the same as being a parent. She can't treat David if it was a rescue varren.*
"Yeah, I know." A frown. "But she's the only one that gets David to talk. He really doesn't talk to anyone else. Not Chambers or Dr. Chakwas and he barely talks to me. It's more mumbles. I think he's still embarrassed for taking control over my cybernetics. But with Jack-he laughs. He engages. He even eats that sludge he forced to eat without making a face.
"Okay so maybe Jack's not the perfect parent material but and not that you or I have any comparison but she's got the big sister act down pat. Anyone who tries to make a move against David…well there won't be anything left to fill a coffee cup."
Liara smiled warmly. *So we act as David Archer's benefactors and Jack acts as the outside face as guardian.* the purple lips pulled into a bright smile. *There are days when I fall in love with you all over again.*
Sam felt heat crawl up her neck at the soft endearing words. "And I you, Angel Eyes."
*It will take me a couple of days to get all the paperwork through the bureaucracy. But my family's standing still has some resonance in the Armali Council. If I use that route to gain fosterhood over David it will expedite things. And I can push to name Jack as a surrogate as well as to his emergency contact along side ours. The rest will be up to you and Director Sanders to work out. Personally I believe I have the easier of the tasks.*
Sam huffed out a half-chuckled. "Tell me about it. Still I have faith in Jack. And ….I think David's good for her too. She's beginning to believe in herself. And that's….something."
Six.
Seven.
"Hey David." Shepard greeted the young man she found settling in the Normandy's mess hall. Currently he seemed to be locked in some sort of omni-game. Upon hearing the Commander's voice he paused the game.
"Hello Commander."
Shepard sat down on the opposite side of the table. "I've got a question for you. As you know we're headed to Grissom Academy. A place that I think you'll love."
"Yes I remember. You said it is a school for those skilled in maths, science, art, music and biotics."
"Yes, that's right."
"Jack said they don't torture students. I won't be made to talk to talk to robots. That it is quiet."
Shepard smiled. "It is. It's quiet. No one will hurt you there. I promise you that."
"Jack said she would turn people to paste if they tried. Will you?"
"Absolutely. But that won't be necessary. You're utterly safe there. Director Sanders cherishes her students and ensures each of her students' safety, wellness and overall happiness. She's a good woman. I've met her. She's very protective of her kids.
"And that sorta brings me to the question I have for you, if you're agreeable that is. I and my bondmate…Liara T'soni…she's asari by the way; we can offer a certain amount of protection that comes with becoming your guardians, but that only if you want it. And…Jack too. She'll be the face of it. I mean she'll there on the forefront for you.
"You've got a couple of years yet before you're legally an adult. Now as it is you're a ward of the State, but Liara, I and Jack being your guardians well…we can protect you, see to it that you lack for nothing and you have someone to go to if you need it."
"I will be part of your family?"
A nod.
"Jack too?"
"Jack too."
A pause. "Okay."
A smile. A puffed out breath "Okay."
"Square root of 906.01 is..."
"Is...30.1." Shepard answered.
That wasn't as hard as the Spectre thought it was going to be. Then again the paperwork still wasn't completely finalized. And then there was the matter of telling Jack.
Square root of 906.01 is 30.1. Somehow figuring the square roots of integers seemed a lot more fun and far easier. But as Shepard was fond of saying nothing worth doing was ever easy.
Eight
Jack found herself pacing back and forth in Shepard's quarters before an amused Shepard and the holoprojection of Liara. "Are you fucking serious?" Her large brown eyes widened in disbelief.
*All that is needed is your signature. That is if you agree to it. I'm sure David would very relieved to have someone with such a tenacious aptitude to protect.* Liara said with the grace and eloquence that seemed an inborn trait of the asari.
"How?" Jack stared at the document she held in her hand. "How did you make this happen?"
"Does it matter?" asked Shepard mindful to keep her voice neutral. "You asked me to make sure David was looked out for, that he had a guardian that would see to his best interests. Mission accomplished. Liara's and my name will be on all official documents. More importantly because of my marriage to Liara, David has the benefit of being protected under the law of the Asari Republics. Which means he is allowed a surrogate guardian-you."
*A Trusted as it were.* Liara smiled
"Or if you want, you'll be David's godmother." Sam translated, knowing the asarian honorific would have little meaning to the younger human. "So? You want the job or not?"
Jack read and reread the document again and again. It seemed impossible! How could she Jack…she didn't even know her real name…be trusted with a kid's protection, let alone a proper legal guardian? She was a hard-core con. She was a murder, kidnapper, she'd committed hijacking, planetary vandalism, smuggling and…and….and all kinds of shit. Drugs, booze, whores…she'd been in so many prisons….there was a reason she was called the psychotic-biotic! Hell she didn't even know how Shepard pulled off her pardons….at least the pardons within Council Space. And Jack hadn't asked. Benefits of being a Spectre she guessed. But this! This was beyond belief.
Jack looked up and saw an expectant patient expression reflected in two pairs of blue eyes: one asari the other her Commander. Her chest felt tight, her stomach coiled in a knot. And she felt those traitorous fucking tears teasing her eyes. With a shaking hand Jack pressed her thumb on the authorization mark and then signed the only name she could go by…the only name she had: Jacqueline Naught.
She handed the data pad back to Shepard who did the same. Thumbprint and her name CDR Samantha Secura Shepard….paused and then hyphenated her family name with T'Soni: Council Spectre
The document was then sent via QEC to Liara, who like the other women did the same. Dr. Liara Shepard-T'Soni: Landed-Maiden of House T'Soni—Armali Republic.
"There it's done." Shepard's smile was warm. "Congratulations, Jack you have a son."
Jack choked on her own spit.
Nine.
Ten.
Grissom Academy loomed before the Galaxy Map. Shepard stared at it. She was almost wistful. It was time for David to find his new home. Funny, not funny…ha ha it was more funny…odd…that of all the crew on the Normandy to form a bond with the boy had been of all people -Jack…and now she was the boy's surrogate guardian.
Then once again perhaps it wasn't so strange. The two had a great deal in common. And considering that that commonalty was Shepard and perhaps more importantly Dr. Chakwas was more than willing to allow long hours of visitation the ex-con had taken advantage of. It was bringing David back into real world more or less despite they were wrapped up in a-make-believe dystopian world.
And it was bringing Jack into a position to interact with people on a more positive level. Her instinct to protect the boy was in a hyper state. Her desperate plea for Shepard and Liara to take the boy into fosterage was proof of that.
Jack's interactions with David Chakwas and Chambers believed to be a step into the right direction for the ex-con to her own rehabilitation back into a more civilized population rather than her normal circles of criminals and pirates.
In short the gaming sessions were therapy for them both.
It had taken ten days even with the Mass Relays to reach Elysium. This place that had a great deal of history for Shepard, more than simply because of her actions when she had just graduated as an N7 Lieutenant that had saved the colony. It was here the first attempt on Liara's life had happened, and it was here that Aleena—sister to Aria T'lok outed herself to be a bounty hunter. But one who decided to protect her mark rather than to take her out.
And it was here that Shepard first believed that Ashley had betrayed her, and it was also the start of Cyan Syndrome. The affects of the condition very nearly destroyed her family dynamics. And because of the bond born of the gestalt Liara had been pulled into those same effects. Fortunately Ash had declined the creation of a Triad which would surely had been the death of a beautiful marriage once the CS was treated.
Elysium was also where Lieutenant David Anderson followed Lieutenant Kahlee Sanders, a woman who had direct connections to a top secret military station. At the time Sanders was working with a scientific team that was investigating the remains of all things a dead Reaper. That had been more than twenty years ago. Back when David Anderson had been a candidate to the first human Spectre. Saren Arcturus had seen the death of that possibility. Over twenty years later Saren had tried to end the second birth of that possibility with Commander Samantha Secura Shepard. It had not worked.
Spectre Samantha Secura Shepard: Commander of the Alliance triumphed. Saren was dead. Sovereign was destroyed. Now Shepard was the protector. She never pretended to be anything different. But to touch the power of a true protector was allow herself to touch the darker shades of the ego carried within the self.
That darker side of the ego was half of life: dark to balance light. Often it weighed within inside Sam like an orphan waiting to be welcomed home. All desire, all fear, all were beset. This was a more than apt description for Jack as it was for Shepard's darker impulses, an impulse one might have labeled as renegade. That part of herself wanted to tear Dr. Gavin Archer apart in a singularity. To kill him as she had that massive firaxan shark back on Thessia. Shepard wanted so badly to render that motherfucking slime's body into liquid. But she hadn't.
Shepard once prided herself on ignoring the darker shades of her personality, to suppress them. Or to pretend they didn't exist or if they did they applied to someone else, not her. Not a paragon—the pure. Not a protector. A Spectre.
But to acknowledge the more renegade aspects of the self was to stop lying. Stop pretending you don't want what you wanted. Stop pretending you don't fear what you fear. Half the day is night. To see truly—Shepard realized in reflection in seeing Jack the most unlikely of all people befriend a lost boy; she had to learn to see in the dark.
Yes the renegade self gave power. When you understood the evil of others it made them pitifully easy to manipulate. Had Shepard not done so with Elias Kelham back on the Citadel? A more renegade act she had used to save Thane's son. She simply told Kelham that she was a Spectre and if she wanted Kelham dead all she had to do was to shoot him. And it would be all above board. Of course Shepard would never had done so but Kelham hadn't known that. It was another kind of chess game.
The darker side of morality showed Shepard the stiff places in a being, his dreads and needs. The renegade self gave you the keys to him. It was all well and good, but still Shepard had her own power. A power she was willing to tap into to stand up against her enemies - the Collectors, the Reapers and The Illusive Man.
If you looked at it-from a certain point of view the Illusive Man was a master of armies, but then again so was Shepard. She may not live within a fortified base but she had one of the most powerful warships the galaxy had ever conceived. And a crew far more than willing to go where she willed.
So far that made them even.
But was there such a thing as too much power? Shepard mused. Cerberus's power has waxed when Shepard's influence has waned. By now Cerberus could takeover unsuspecting Alliance colonies and overwhelm much of the Citadel controlled territories, especially now due to the attacks from the Collectors. And they had.
Shepard stared at the map and on distracted thought she pulled up the all the locations where she knew Cerberus to have bases all the way back when she was chasing Saren to now. What she saw astonished Shepard and yet … it didn't. She half expected the network to be this expansive.
Cerberus had created a finely tuned network, a spider's web of power bases. Most the current stations were in the Terminus Systems where the Citadel and Earth Systems Alliance could not touch them. But many of the bases shared the same systems or nebulas or clusters that had had Collector abductions, which included the nebula of Phoenix Massing which was the same nebula of the Typhon system and Project Overlord.
There was something to that...something that nagged Shepard's hindbrain. Could Cerberus be tipping off the Collectors? Making some sort of deal with them? Surely not...but then...Shepard wouldn't put it past TIMmy to do just that. But what then would he gain? It had to be something big. powerful...monumentally powerful...Unless..
A sigh...unless it was a way for TIMmy to get his hands on the Collector Base. Now that would be one hell of a weapon against the Reapers.
"Commander approaching Grissom Station." Joker's voice coming over the ship's intercom system pulled Shepard from her musings.
"Understood. Alert Director Sanders to our arrival and that we will be docking." Shepard ordered and in the same motion turned the galaxy map back to their current location. Elysium hovered awe-inspiringly like a blue and white marble.
"Already done, Commander." Joker said. "Director Sanders is waiting for our arrival."
Shepard smiled at the preemptive initiative her Flight Lieutenant had taken. That was a mark of a good junior officer was to anticipate the needs of his superior's needs and meeting them before they were asked for. Joker was a very apt junior officer.
Shepard moved to the Normandy's bridge and watched as her flight lieutenant expertly piloted the ship into the station's port. With a soft clunk the stations maglocks took hold of the Normandy's hull and an umbilical gangplank stretched out and hissed as its seals locked on the warship's airlock.
"Dr. Chakwas, have our guest ready for deployment. Jack, Justicar Samara report to the shuttle-bay." After a very brief pause Shepard added with deliberate usage of the salutation: "Operative Lawson report as well. Shepard out."