Chapter 7
Garrus survived. Well, perhaps survived was a bit too dramatic. He was going to make a full recovery, at least. His arm would have to stay on a sling for a while to avoid undue movement while the bones healed, and he would have to walk on a crutch in order to maintain his balance while his spur reconnected to his leg. But he would live through the ordeal with minor scarring along his spur where it connected. Who knows, maybe he'd even start to show it off as he got older. Scars were attractive to some women, though don't go spreading that around—turian women are fickle enough as it is. Don't want to insult them.
Unfortunately, Garrus hadn't taken the revelation that Jane was the one who biotically shot him up to the roof of the Armax Arena too well, at least not initially. He was more than perturbed, actually—quite a lot of confusion mixed with the effects of anesthesia not entirely wearing off yet made any attempt at explanation difficult. Garrus had always been brash and open with his opinion, so nothing he said was unexpected.
However, accusing Jane of never being his friend was more hurtful than he probably realized at the time. Sparatus had been keenly aware of how this would have been the first Garrus saw Jane cry. It was completely unheard of among turians, and it wasn't well-known that humans spilled water from their eyes when saddened. Perhaps that contributed to him not seeing how hurt she was. Or perhaps he was just a soulless piece of filth in training and this was the first manifest of it.
If it weren't for Shiala's immeasurable patience and Jane's willingness to maintain their friendship, Sparatus would have deemed convincing Garrus of continuing relations with his ward a lost cause. But they had both been quite persistent.
"She never would have hurt you on purpose, Garrus. You know that" Shiala had argued. There were many different arguments, all sound from a logical perspective. "She could not have had her biotics for more than a week at her age." "Her spikes in power can easily be remedied by a biotic amp." "You can survive this ordeal and you will grow stronger for it." "It isn't as if you're going to stay on crutches forever."
Jane's arguments were more emotional. To be expected, when a thirteen year old girl was trying to convince her only friend for years that she didn't severely injure him on purpose. Her arguments were more along the lines of "I don't want to fight you, Garrus," and "if you let me stay your friend I will let you make as many terrible jokes about my taste in food forever." In the end, what sealed the deal was a back-and-forth argument about letting Garrus throw lemons at Jane and something about a juice box and heat sinks he didn't quite understand. The end result was positive enough; Garrus and Jane were on good terms again.
Frankly, Sparatus sort of wished they weren't. After Jane was permanently allowed to leave the house (and Sparatus had made clear that it was Jane's responsibility to care for herself) she didn't seem to want to go anywhere without the guy. Seeing a turian hobble around on a crutch and cradling a broken arm was nothing particularly special—Solana and Garrus traded many jokes on the matter before So headed off to the Turian Hierarchy in Palaven when she was of age—but seeing him hobble around with a human by his side? That would raise some eyebrows.
And, you know, a number of the places Jane and Garrus went to were… rather notable. He had recalled Jane telling him about visiting the Conduit in the center of the presidium right before the elevator to the Citadel Tower. Sparatus tried rather hard to steer the topic towards the historical significance of the monument—the Protheans and their ancient civilization, the Avatar of Vengeance and his success in destroying the Reapers, the Prothean scientists on Ilos that made a failsafe should the reapers ever somehow return.
But no, Jane only wanted to talk about how pretty it looked and how if you tilted your head correctly the false clouds on the ceiling of the Presidium kind of looked like the ancient turian symbols for 'I want a sandwich'. Then she started talking about this one food place that she had seen—Ryuusei Sushi, near the Silversun Strip—and wouldn't hush up about the wide variety of fish she saw and how badly she wanted to go eat there. And then she would talk about how Garrus always wanted to go to the top of the Presidium where the support beams were and that Jane wanted to take him up there some time if she got permission and that was when Sparatus put his foot down and told her that she was not going to trespass on the Presidium while he was still breathing.
Of course the new status quo inside the apartment wasn't much healthier. Shiala wasn't just versed in the biotics taught to every asari in their general education, it turned out she was a honest-to-the-Goddess commando. And her ties with Benezia meant that modifying a state of the art asari biotic amp for (the incredibly similar, it turned out) human physiology was child's play. Jane had a unique biotic amp of her own to use, and Sparatus felt a small bit of pride that his little girl only got the best.
He'd feel much more proud if she didn't use her newfound abilities to give Urz a few tours of the ceiling as "Spider-Fish-Dog" and re-enacting old asari playwright's works in midair with a PVC pipe and one of the rubber balls usually used to keep Urz from eating the couch. It was bad enough the blasted varren was reluctant to eat anything other than Pyjack meat after Jane's foray into the Fish Dog Food Shack produced a far-too-big Pyjack burger (that Jane didn't really like that much), he didn't need to pee on the ceiling. Seeing Urz chomp down on those things started making him feel ill in the stomach—seeing him do those in simulated zero gravity? He needed a boulder to chew on.
Jane quickly found that there were standards of grooming that she had thus far been unaware of. One time she came back with Shiala with at least ten bags of things that he hardly understood. One bag was filled with hair products—at least three bottles of some kind of liquid used to clean it, a pronged device that turned it into straighter segments, what looked like a torture device that curled it around in a way that made his stomach churn again, some odd-looking clip things that kept it out of her face, colorful rubber bands that tied her hair back, a… thing with teeth on it for thinner segments of hair. Seeing a fringe bend and twirl like that made him sick. He would bet three quarters of his fortune that Jane could make him sick just by blinking.
That didn't even get to the human marking paint that she had found. Evidently, the marks made on a human's face were purely for cosmetic value, not any indication of family history or cultural significance. The myriad experiments she had with Shiala with various different shades of "fingernail polish" and combinations of thin face paint with some unusual colors of "lipstick" confused him and made him dizzy.
Sparatus had also recently found himself spending some more time with Shiala without Jane around. She would go out and give Urz a walk, or buy some new datapads, or do whatever it is she did, and they would be left to their own devices. Often they would work together to get the apartment back in order, speaking about things happening in their lives.
"You know, Shiala, I've never found out where you lived in all these years. How's your own house keeping up?" He asked.
"I've been meaning to bring that up actually." Shiala said. "Matriarch Benezia has recently informed me of an… issue she's having. With her daughter." Oh. That wasn't good. "She told me that she cannot afford to house me on the Citadel while she is off assisting her. She has donated much of her wealth to charities over the years, but she has to sell the apartment in order to afford a shuttle to Thessia."
"Are you planning on going with the Matriarch?" Sparatus asked, turning up from his dusting to watch Shiala finish reorganizing the cabinets and throwing away the spoiled food. She stood up from her crouching position and looked at him.
"I doubt I will go with her. I was…well, I have another idea." She said. "I am aware that your apartment has three bedrooms available. If you allow it, I would like to stay here with you and Jane while Matriarch Benezia is on Thessia."
Sparatus froze, deep in thought. The offer chilled him a bit, and made him feel a little ill. That was unusual—Shiala had almost never made him feel ill to his stomach unless Jane was around. Well, perhaps she was involved technically, but… Sparatus considered. Privately, it would be nothing but beneficial for all parties concerned—Jane could practice her biotics more, Shiala had a place to stay, and Sparatus himself would have an extra pair of hands to help around the house picking up after Urz.
But publicly? Publicly this could be a disaster. He had no doubt that word would get out about Sparatus having an asari in his apartment. He spent more time making absolutely certain that the public never knew Jane was in his house being raised than making sure Shiala's frequent visits were covered. There had already been a couple of annoying salarian tabloid journalists that had noticed the patterns of an asari with decidedly turian birthmarks visiting the Turian Councilor at regular intervals.
"I understand if you cannot, Sparatus." Shiala suddenly intervened while he was still thinking. "I know that the rumors about asari promiscuity can be harmful to the reputation of a high ranking turian. If I cannot stay here, then I will be more than happy to take my leave with the esteemed Matriarch."
"No! I mean…" Sparatus' head began to swim with lightheadedness. "In all honesty, Shiala. I think that Jane's mental health is more important than my reputation." The words were tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Well, what I would like to say is, I mean, my private life should not be the public's business. Jane needs you for a sense of stability. To put it bluntly, you are the only mother figure she has in her life right now. I would be more than happy to let you stay. For her sake."
Shiala gave a solemn looking smirk, but otherwise nodded. "Thank you, Councilor. I will do my best not to intrude." Shiala walked over to the refrigerator and plucked out an energy bar. She ate it solemnly, and Sparatus held his head, feeling ill.
"Right. Well, maybe we should…" Sparatus had begun to walk over to one of the islands in the kitchen, when suddenly the whole world swam and he tripped. His hands were freezing and he felt incredibly nauseous. He kept his mouth shut as much as he could.
"Sparatus? Are you feeling well?" Shiala asked calmly. She walked towards him slowly, but Sparatus couldn't pay too much attention without sputtering out in a coughing fit. Shiala placed a tentative hand on his cowl, but then Sparatus couldn't hold it in anymore. This was not good. He hobbled quickly to the sink, where they had thankfully already finished putting away the dishes.
He vomited right into the sink, large chunks of undigested food tainting his mouth. Among the large glop of disgusting food chunks and undigested bones and rocks he could barely see, a deep blue shade splashed onto it from his mouth, leaving the unmistakable taste of copper. Oh spirits, this was definitely not good.
Far away, he could hear Shiala rubbing the back of his cowl and trying to see if he was choking. But he just couldn't stop puking, and he felt bloated, and the world swam and he was freezing cold and he had never felt so sick in his life. From a thousand miles away he heard Shiala speak into her omni-tool in what an untrained ear would find unusually calm but he had been with her as Jane's teacher for, what, eight, nine years? She wasn't calm at all right now. This was as panicked as Shiala would ever get and she kind of looked green from this angle but then he had to heave his gizzard out of his body and he grabbed his mouth to try to keep it in…
Then the world swam in a circle and he felt the avalanche of cold engulfing him again and he remembered Valern's increasingly strange dreams in that warm cabin in the middle of nowhere in the land of cold and pointy trees, remembered Kawacatoose and President Liu and Tevos and Hannah Shepard and the neutral-chirality food bars he had to survive on and suddenly he found himself crumpled on the floor with Shiala and surrounded by a blanket with Hannah at the same time.
CODEX
In accordance with the No-Reapers AU, I wanted to keep the Conduit around and I wanted Liara to still study the protheans (because she's going to make appearances later). So, I found a solution; have the Reapers still come for their Cycle, but have the Protheans succeed in building the Crucible. Javik was the champion of that Cycle, and destroyed the Reapers without remorse for the loss of all Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately most of the protheans were spread extremely thin by the time this happened, and Javik had "low EMS", so they were screwed even though the Reapers were dead and gone, and died out anyway.
Thousands of years later the galaxy follows the same timeline it did in canon, only now the Reapers are dead and gone. The Conduit is there because Vigil opened up their canisters early, and the scientists all decided it would be better to have a failsafe in place, in case the Reapers weren't actually destroyed. Thus the Conduit was created to make certain that the species of the future were allowed a chance, just in case.
And also, kudos to anyone who realized that Sparatus' constant nausea was foreshadowing rather than just a simple character quirk! I apologize that this chapter is shorter than usual, but it just came out that way.
