Rannoch

The shuttle glided above the unfamiliar ground. Below lay a sea of green, fields of grass lazily wafting in the wind, covering the brown soil. Up ahead lay several stone columns forged by nature and time, dominating the landscape.

Off to the left, past a tall cliff, was the ocean. It was a deep, dark blue. It washed over the rocks at the bottom, sending out an enormous roar each time. The orange sun reflected off of the waves, sending light into the shuttle, causing its passenger to squint.

To the right lay the quarian capital city, the place where the first quarian ships made landfall when they came back to their homeworld. For the first few months, they had not given the city a name, choosing to call it simply "the capital." However, shortly after the Assault on the Citadel, it was unanimously approved that the official name would be "Legion" in honor of a geth's selfless sacrifice for a quarian during the siege.

Currently, tens of thousands of quarians lived in the city of Legion and was growing at an exponential rate. The streets were flooded with quarian and geth alike, both finally coming to terms with one another after centuries of conflict.

The new alliance with the geth consensus enabled the quarians to further advance their society in ways they could never have imagined. Combining their talents, new avenues of technology were explored and brought to light. Shield technology, for both capital and personal use was modified and perfected. Cloaking technologies were also introduced as standard issue for quarian marines. And for the military use, plasma rifles were now being constructed as a more efficient use of ammunition.

The quarians themselves brought cohesion and direction to the geth as well. In the three hundred years that the geth had solely occupied Rannoch, they had been expanding their resources but without direct guidance from their Creators, they could not decide what they needed to develop. In the first year, quarian scientists had created firmware that updated a geth's processing abilities as well as added memory for more individuality. The result of their efforts caused the geth to advance to almost AI levels of thinking. Despite the inherent danger the quarians had feared, the geth had repeatedly reassured them that they harbored no ill will, merely gratitude at the "gifts" they were provided with.

Twenty years down the line and it appeared that Legion's wish had gone fulfilled. It was a good way to repay a debt.

The shuttle flitted in midair and the passenger concentrated on the destination up ahead. Skimming the ground and slowing to a halt, the door opened and the passenger extracted himself, giving the automated shuttle the "all-clear" from his omni-tool. Watching it drift upward, he started climbing the stone steps that led to the house.

He could hear talking, even from where he was. There was a nice smell in the air, something cooking? Lots of laughter, a hint of a splash. A pool, possibly. He reached the entrance of the house, where in big holographic letters on the front of the door read, "Door's unlocked. Come on in!"

He shrugged and waved a hand in front of the green interface. The door gave a chime and opened, enabling him to enter. He stepped inside, tugging at the sleeves of his shirt before he sighed in relief from the air conditioning that was providing respite from the hot day.

Garrus Vakarian squinted in the dimness, eyes adjusting from the brightness of the outside. Peering cautiously, he started to move forward past all of the people who were milling about in the front.

The house was packed. There were clumps of people of every shape and size. Asari, turian, salarian, quarian, Garrus gaped at the assortment.

When they said "party," I didn't know they meant this many people.

Entering the kitchen, he suddenly spotted a food bar to the side. Taking the moment to acknowledge the rumbling of his stomach, Garrus moved over and quickly began to pile some morsels labeled "dextro" onto a plate, being very liberal with anything that featured meat. He popped what appeared to be a Palaven crab on top of a cracker in his mouth, munching noisily, tasting the sweet meat and the saltiness of the food.

"Not bad," he murmured. Appreciating the craftsmanship, he started stuffing his face with food. He didn't see anyone he recognized here yet so he could embarrass the hell out of himself right now and he wouldn't even care.

He gulped the last of the food down, sighing in relief. Setting the plate down, Garrus moved over to the window to get a good look at the backyard. It appeared that there were a large contingent of young quarian males using the pool, splashing one another and participating in a game. Garrus squinted in interest. He had little experience in seeing quarians outside of their suits before. He knew that they were slowly starting to shed their protective layers due to the fact that geth were now assimilating into their body systems to ward of diseases, but he had no idea that the effects would take place so soon.

"Is there someone you're looking for?" a voice to his right asked.

Garrus glanced in that direction and was intrigued to see that it was another quarian who was addressing him, this one also unmasked, her silver hair floating down both sides of her face, "Ah…yes. I'm actually looking for the host…but I don't exactly know where he is."

The quarian giggled, "Then, Garrus, by that logic, wouldn't that make me the hostess?"

Garrus' eyes opened wide as he finally put the pieces together, "Spirits…it can't be….Tali?"

Despite being forty-seven years old, the woman did not appear to have aged at all. Garrus was struck that, compared to humans, her face was devoid of any blemishes or wrinkles. She had a captivating radiance that could put most of the asari race on notice. He grunted in surprise as the quarian's still lithe form sprung in for a hug.

"It's good to see you, you bosh'tet."

Garrus followed up with an awkward pat on the back, "I…I didn't recognize you without your visor. I didn't even know you stopped wearing it!"

"Oh, I had uploaded a geth platform into my suit years ago. My immune system slowly got updated over time and now I can remain unmasked in familiar areas without getting sick," she was beaming as she said all this. "Of course, I can't just travel to any place without my suit. It's just that…never mind. How have you been, Garrus?"

"I…" Garrus was still getting over his astonishment, "I'm fine. I just…wasn't expecting this, is all."

Tali rolled her eyes, "You'll get used to it. Although I can't really make faces at you underneath the visor anymore, which is one of the few drawbacks."

"Good to know," Garrus replied dryly.

Tali shrugged, "So, you said you were looking for my husband?"

"Ah, yes. I had…have something to tell him. Citadel business, unfortunately."

"What, another lecture?" Tali was referring to the fact that her husband, ever since he quit his job at C-Sec, was now working freelance as a consultant for companies, particularly munitions and heavy equipment.

"Nothing like that. But it's kind of private."

Tali laughed at that, "You do realize that he will just tell me after you leave, right?"

Garrus gave a small shrug, "Pretty much, but I kind of have to follow this assignment to the letter."

Tali gave an exaggerated frown, "Well, the sooner you tell him, the sooner I'll know. Come on, he's up in the office."

The stairway inside the house was blocked by a throng of people and rather than push unsuccessfully through the crowd, Garrus and Tali elected to go out the back way, towards the staircase in the backyard. Sliding open the glass door, Garrus was assaulted again by the heat of the day. His ever present eyepiece darkened on his one eye in a vain attempt to provide some relief. His arms prickled underneath his shirt, he was starting to get uncomfortable.

Tali tapped his arm as she pointed out towards the pool, "You see the young man, sitting on the bench near the pool?"

Garrus nodded, "Yep."

Tali smiled, "That's my son Dayrl. He came back from his Pilgrimage a few weeks ago."

"Huh. He looks a lot different that I imagined him…no mask and all, I mean."

"Ha! Well, what did you expect?"

"At this point, I have no clue. How was his experience abroad?"

Tali glowed with pride, "Very successful. Dayrl found a job working at Sirta for a year on Thessia. He came back with new drive core knowledge and presented it to the university as his dissertation."

Garrus frowned, "I thought that quarians would present their findings to a captain of a ship in the Fleet."

"That's correct," Tali nodded. "But since we have Rannoch, our Fleet isn't exactly the most important thing in the world anymore. We don't need to live aboard a ship for the rest of our lives so we implemented a new focus on knowledge and learning. All quarians today get to choose where they want to go and work for a living instead of being completely devoted to the Fleet."

"Makes sense."

"And that one, over there?" she now pointed toward a girl on the opposite side of the pool. "My youngest, Vaeri."

Garrus gave a nod in appreciation, "They've grown a lot, Tali. It's been years since I've seen them last."

"We've invited you over several times since."

"You know how hectic my job is. Not much room for socializing."

"We can start to fix that here. My husband is on a call right now so I think I'll introduce you to some people." She grabbed his arm and started dragging him over to a table, ignoring his sputtering protests.

Tali walked up to an asari in a white dress and tapped her on the shoulder, "Liara? This is Garrus, the one I told you about? He's a Council spectre."

The asari cautiously held out her hand, "A spectre? How long have you been one?"

Garrus nervously cleared his throat, "Ah…about twelve years now. It's not as glamorous as the vids make out." He shook her hand firmly, "Garrus Vakarian."

"Liara T'Soni," the asari said. "How do you know Tali?"

"I was her husband's sparring partner when he first arrived on the Citadel. We became friends and he introduced me to her one night. We've stayed in contact since."

Liara squinted, "Weren't you the turian who was helping on the Assault?"

"Uh…yes. That was me. Me, a crazy human, and one huge damn-"

"Vakarian!" a huge voice exclaimed before Garrus found himself embraced from behind and lifted into the air. "You son of a bitch, you fly across the galaxy and don't even say hi to me first? I'm crushed."

Actually, I'm the one who's crushed. Garrus rasped as he struggled to breathe the huge arms wrapped around his midsection. Frantically tapping at the figure, the arms released and the turian inhaled deeply, racking up a fit of coughing in the process.

"Damn it, Wrex. You trying to kill me?"

The huge, armored krogan expelled a laugh as he rapped the poor turian on the back, "You, Garrus? Nah, but I did want to scare you a bit."

"I appreciate the thought."

Liara was struggling to hide her laughter, "I had no idea how you got to be such good friends with a krogan. I've never seen one who held such a comradeship with someone who wasn't another krogan."

Wrex bared a toothy smile, "It wasn't easy, asari. It got bloody."

"He got bloody," Garrus offered. "I was the one who had to patch him up afterward."

"I see," Liara smirked while Tali simply rolled her eyes.

"You never did mention how you two came to know one another," Garrus gestured from Liara to Tali, spotting the subtle exchange.

"Oh, right," Liara said. "I was visiting Rannoch on an archeology scouting party-"

"You do archeology for a living?" Garrus rose what passed for an eyebrow.

"I have my doctorate in the area; I mostly dig for prothean sites."

"Have there been any reported instances of prothean artifacts on Rannoch in the past?"

"Not that we know of. Then again, the whole planet was cordoned off for the last three centuries. Someone had to take a look," she took a sip of her drink before continuing. "When I was visiting, I happened to come across the house here when my transport broke down. I knocked and Tali answered. She offered to call for transport and held a long conversation with me until it came."

Liara laughed at the reminiscence, "It turns out that we had talked for so long that the backup transport had been waiting outside for half an hour at the time. We kept in touch afterward and now find ourselves here."

Tali, spotting Garrus' anxious posture, tapped him on the side as Liara turned to Wrex, "You can go to him now, he should be done with his call. It's the third floor."

Thanking her, he pushed through the crowd to reach the outside staircase. Climbing the metal steps, he approached another glass door and it slid open at his presence. Garrus stepped back into the climate controlled house to what passed for an office.

It was sparsely furnished, a desk sat in one corner with an extranet console. A couch sat in the middle with a large display opposite from it. Garrus walked over and sat down on the couch. He sighed as the material gave to his body. It was quite comfortable. He would have to ask what it was made from.

A hissing noise caused him to turn his head to the right, to view the source. A small door on the floor opened up and a figure walked out. He was tall, broad, a shade under six feet tall, one eighty. He wore a simple shirt and blue jeans, nothing terribly fancy. His hair was short, grey at the temples. A few lines ran across his face, but aside from those he still maintained a youthful air.

"Garrus!" Alec exclaimed. "It's good to see you."

Garrus leapt to his feet to grasp his forearms in greeting until the human pulled him in a firm embrace, "Alec, it has been too long."

The human waved a hand, "I know, I know. Being spectre isn't actually the easiest job in the world, is it? Not all sunshine and butterflies."

Garrus snorted, "I'm starting to understand why you never accepted the position in the first place."

"Priorities, man. I had the whole 'family' thing to consider."

"If I remember correctly, you weren't even told that you were actually going to be a father until after you rejected the Council's offer."

Alec gave a shrug, "What can I say? I have excellent timing."

"You…" Garrus closed his mouth. "I'm not even going to bother arguing with you."

"Afraid to lose, Vakarian?"

"Trying to reason with a lunatic will not get anyone anywhere. I'll just resort to a nod and call it that."

"Well, you always have the Council to fall behind. You are their new golden boy from what I hear." Alec cocked his head, "What was it two years ago? Something about a whole crew of batarian slavers being taken out by one turian? Not a single hostage killed? Who's the lunatic here, exactly?"

"That's the thing," Garrus gave him a light shove. "I've been around you too long. Plus I've watched too many of your stupid action vids with that I whenever I find myself improvising, I resort to those incredibly dumb tactics."

"Looks good for the newsreels, huh?"

"Oh, I can hear my instructors rolling in their graves now for the poor technique those depict me in my duties." Garrus then gave a cough, "Actually, there is something that we need to discuss."

"What's that?"

"The Council sent an order before I left the Citadel. They want to meet with you."

Alec frowned, "When?"

"Tomorrow."

Alec's brow furrowed, "What for?"

At that Garrus shrugged, "Didn't say. Only mentioned that they wanted you and that I'll be there as well, but I don't think they're entirely opposed to the idea of Tali tagging along."

Nodding, Alec said, "Smart of them. You seriously have no clue of what it is they want, exactly?"

"If I had the slightest inkling, I'd tell you. No secrets between us."

"In that case, Garrus, I'd want you to stay the night if we're going to the same place anyway. I'm not having one of my best friends hanging on the hopes of finding a hotel at night."

"I…all right," Garrus relented.

"Then that's that, I suppose. Let's get back to the party, Garrus. I need to address the crowd and you might as well stand next to me and look good."

"A speech?" Garrus asked for clarification.

"Well, my son just came home after a year abroad. I think that I need to reference his achievement, don't you?"

"You're the father here, not me."

There had to be at least two hundred people in the backyard alone, Garrus surmised. From what he could tell, unsurprisingly, Alec was the only human in the group, perhaps on the planet. No discomfort showed on his face though, as it was the look of a man who had everything in his life and was perfectly content.

Switching on his omni-tool, Alec spoke into it, his voice magnified, "Everyone, everyone, I'd like to thank you all for coming here today…"

The crowd immediately quieted, looking up to the man on top of the stairwell before he continued.

"We are here today to commemorate my son's successful Pilgrimage," Dayrl's friends started poking and prodding him in good fun and Dayrl laughed along. "And we welcome his safe return after a long year on Thessia."

There was a loud rush of applause as the boy looked away, rather embarrassed.

"He's got your nose," Garrus whispered mischievously, spotting the correlation.

"But Tali's eyes," Alec replied before putting his omni–tool back up to his mouth. "My son…Dayrl…" Alec held out a hand. "You are now an adult. You now have the choice to do anything that you desire in your life. Build a home, enlist in the fleet, start a family, all of this is now open to you. But, I only ask one thing from you. And that is for wherever your path in life takes you, that you enjoy what you do, that you are happy for the rest of your days."

Alec took a deep breath before continuing, "I have taught you all I know, my son. I have watched you grow into the man you are today. I now say this, with love in my heart, that me and your mother-," he gestured to Tali. "-We are always here for you. Our door is always open for our wonderful son. We love you and we will always love you."

He lowered his hand with a nod and the applause started up again. Dayrl was teary eyed as he stared up at his father. He mouthed a "thank you" to which Alec placed a hand over his heart. Next to him, Garrus was clapping loudly.

"Nicely done," the turian said. "You do well with your words just as much as a sword."

"Between you and me, Garrus," Alec admitted. "I felt it was kind of cliché."

"What does it matter? You were speaking the truth and that is enough."

Alec shrugged, he could always count on Garrus to make him feel more confident, "If you say so. Now, I'm personally starving. Did you happen to spot any good levo food while you were down there?

"Levo? Wasn't even looking for them. Now, your dextro appetizers, I have to say, were absolutely fantastic…"

"You know dad, you didn't really have to say all that."

The four of them stood in front of the staircase, the crowd having just dispersed after an entire evening. All of the stragglers had gone as well, and cleaning drones were now doing a sweep of the house, emitting a blue light as they vaporized any excess debris left on the ground after the festivities.

"What are you talking about?" Alec said in mock surprise. "You're my son, it's my duty to show you off whenever I can."

"Your father just loves you very much, is all," Tali said as she sidled up to her husband's waist.

Dayrl laughed, "I know, it's just…thank you, dad. For everything."

Alec brought his son in for a hug, "You did very well, Dayrl. I'm proud of you."

Tali also hugged her son while Vaeri rolled her eyes at the exorbitant display of emotion.

"You won't be getting off so easily, young lady," Alec cautioned, seeing the gesture. "This same thing is going to happen to you when you go off for your Pilgrimage."

"I know, dad," she grinned. "But you still act like we're going to get shot at all the time whenever we leave the house."

Alec and Tali stole a glance at that, "I'm…not saying it couldn't happen."

"Dad," Dayrl said. "Relax. We've heard your war stories before and I think that we understand the point by now."

"War stories?" Alec stiffened in surprise. "Do you really think I'm that old? I only was in two big skirmishes. Two! You kids just act like I sit around the fireplace and do nothing but grumble and curse in a drunken haze."

Vaeri and Tali giggled, "You might have done that once or twice."

"Enough," Alec sighed. "You're still going to hear my 'war stories' in the future whether you like it or not. Right now, it's late and you two should be off to bed. Don't make me grab Garrus to back me up on this."

"Leave me out of this," a voice called from the guest room sleepily.

Before Vaeri could open up her mouth to negotiate, Alec said, "And no. Your boyfriend is not staying over."

"But…why not?" she sputtered.

"Because I have to leave for the Citadel early tomorrow and I don't like the idea of leaving you two in the house by yourself."

"Oh come on! It will take him forever to get back home at this point."

"Tough, he should have called a shuttle ahead of time. And isn't this your fifth boyfriend in the span of a year?"

"He's the same one and you know it," Vaeri glowered. "You say this every time-"

"Because it gets you riled up every time. He's not staying over. End of story."

Vaeri turned to her mother for help. Tali simply shrugged and their daughter turned and left in a huff. Dayrl had already retired to his room so the remaining two ascended the stairs to their own bedroom. Once inside, Alec peeled off his shirt and pants, stepping into sleeping clothes quickly.

"You did mention that you were going to the Citadel tomorrow," Tali sat down next to him on the bed. "Was that what Garrus wanted to talk about?"

"Yeah, he said that the Council wanted to speak with me about something."

"What?"

"No idea," Alec shrugged. "I honestly don't have the first clue of what exactly what they would want."

"Are you worried?"

"I can't be worried if I don't know what to expect, could I?"

Tali bit her lip, "You also did mention that you would be leaving Vaeri and Dayrl home alone so that means…"

"You're coming along," Alec addressed his wife. "Garrus let slip that the Council wasn't being particularly picky on who I bring, just so long as I knew of the event first."

"Saves time on you having to tell me everything."

"It seems they finally have grasped the value of foresight."

"What do you figure?" she asked, placing an arm around Alec's neck. "That they're going to beg you to be a spectre again?"

"Knowing the luck I've had in the past," Alec leaned in to kiss Tali. "That's the least of my worries."