Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for discussion of death and violence involving a minor.

…

Waltzing Matilda

Matilda Shepard was a square-jawed ex-soldier in her mid-sixties who mustered out because of a bullet to the knee but as soon as the lean, grey-haired woman walked into the airport to collect her from Captain Anderson, Regan knew she could kick her arse six ways to Sunday with her pinkie alone.

"Thank you for taking her on," Anderson told the ex-Marine after she saluted him.

"No problems," Matilda replied with a smile as she glanced at Regan, green eyes keen and compassionate. "If Patel thinks she's worth the trouble, then it's the least I could do."

Regan saluted the woman and she chuckled quietly. "I'm not your superior officer," she said.

"Might as well be," Regan replied bluntly. She had to start thinking like a proper soldier, not a gangbanger.

"I see," Matilda murmured before looking to Anderson. "I read the psychologist's report."

"Then you know what to expect." Anderson gave Regan a reassuring glance. In the three days since she'd burned all her bridges with the Reds, the Captain had become her advocate for some reason.

Matilda regarded Regan thoughtfully. "Can you read, write and do maths?"

"Yeah. I had Edu-Channel at home and Mum did that much with me."

"Good, you're a step up on some of the other kids I've fostered." Matilda smiled and it warmed her scarred face. "Do you want to be homeschooled, go to high school or do TAFE?"

Regan thought of putting on a uniform and walking into a school full of people her age and shuddered. "TAFE, please," she said quietly.

"As you wish." Matilda nodded to Anderson. "Want to come by for a cuppa or are you going to piss off like you always do?"

"I have to be Vancouver by sundown," the Captain groused. "Think of me when eating the banana bread."

"I will, trust me." Matilda saluted and Regan echoed her movement, receiving a friendly nod from Anderson.

"Keep yourselves out of trouble, both of you," he said with a brief smile.

"Yeah, but who's going to keep you out of trouble?" Matilda asked fondly.

"Kahlee, of course." The Captain nodded and with military precision, turned around and walked into the crowd.

"We served in the same unit," Matilda explained once he'd left. "Good soldier and a better man, despite what certain people might say."

Regan nodded, sensing that the ex-Marine wasn't going to talk about those 'certain people'.

"I'm not going to treat you like a kid," Matilda said as they walked out of the airport. "I know damned well you've killed people as well as hurt them. I can see it in your eyes."

"They would have killed me," Regan pointed out quietly.

"I know. Gangs are rough – I'm from Western Sydney." She hailed a cab and it slid into a spare park in the taxi rank. "Since you seem comfortable with military authority, you can consider me a mixture of drill sergeant and counsellor. The first thing I need to do is get you eating right and packing on some muscle – at the moment, you're too damned thin to get your biotic implants and without them, you won't be able to Lift a pin."

Regan opened another strawberry protein bar and ate it. "I'm always hungry."

"Because you're a biotic. Even when they're latent like you, they burn up ridiculous amounts of energy." Matilda chivvied her into the taxi and gave an address to the driver. "I assume you know not to piss on this opportunity."

"I was gonna enlist when I was eighteen anyway," Regan mumbled. "Why would I piss off the person who could see me thrown in the Stockade?"

"Smart girl." Matilda leaned back and brought up a file on her omnitool. "So, you're autistic and malnourished."

"…Apparently so." Regan shrugged. "Never knew why I didn't get people or why they thought me weird."

"Well, it's a different way of thinking. The psychologists call it 'neurodivergent' and while it makes you different, it gives you talents that a neurotypical mightn't have." Matilda smiled slightly. "Like your ability to snipe a target from a kilometre away."

That made Regan feel better. She didn't much like being considered weird, though she didn't mind being different.

"However, your hand-to-hand skills are shit. I'll teach you how to do some krav maga – it's nasty, it's vicious and it's an effective combat style." Matilda looked at Regan pointedly. "It's meant to disable or kill quickly, Regan. You'll be a better fighter than any of your old gang… and if I find out you've misused what I taught you, I'll kick your arse from here back to the Brisbane Coast."

"Yes, ma'am," Regan mumbled, cowed by that stern glance.

"Good." Matilda settled in her seat with a sigh. "I hope you feel comfortable enough to talk to me, but if not, there's a social worker who'll be assigned to you. Thankfully, you're too damned young and not fitted with implants to be dragged off to Brain Camp. I've heard bad things about that place."

Regan decided to remain silent. She wasn't sure what to think of being a biotic but she was relieved she wasn't going to some secret facility.

Eventually they arrived at the suburban prefab apartment block where Matilda lived. She paid the cabbie and got out, Regan following her, before she walked to a ground-floor unit.

Regan looked around curiously. There were actual trees and bushes surrounding the shiny silver-grey building. She picked a leathery grey-green leaf and shredded it, breathing in the strongly astringent scent.

"Eucalyptus tree – gum tree," Matilda said as she swiped her keycard to get in. "I love the smell of the leaves."

Inside, Matilda's apartment was spacious, consisting of two bedrooms, a bathroom and a common room (with kitchen) that she'd set up as a mini-gym. The bedroom Regan got had a king single bed with plastic-wrapped sheets folded on its end, a desk and a chair. "I expect you to make your bed every morning military-style," Matilda ordered briskly. "I'll show you how to do it until you get it right, but I want to see at least an attempt at it, alright?"

Regan nodded, overwhelmed by the fact that she was getting her own bedroom.

"Normally, I'd take you into the kitchen and start teaching you how to cook, but it's been a long day and I can't be arsed to cook." Matilda smiled at Regan. "So, you have a choice of Italian, Chinese or Thai takeaway."

"Chinese, please," Regan promptly replied.

"Wonderful!" Matilda activated her omnitool and put in an order. "Have a shower before it arrives."

"Yes, ma'am." Regan gathered the new clothing she'd been given – prefab jumpsuit and underwear, nothing fancy – and took herself to the shower. Matilda was brisk and friendly, not trying to be a maternal figure to Regan but also not treating her like shit. She could cope with that.

Cleaned and dressed, she came into the common room and said, "Thanks for giving me a chance, ma'am."

Matilda looked up from where she was setting the drop-leaf table and smiled. "You're welcome. Someone once gave me a similar chance a long time ago and so I wound up here. Figure I like to pay it forward."

That… actually made sense. Regan felt a little knot of tension ease in the back of her neck as she sat down at the table, watching the ex-Marine's capable tan hands putting everything in their place.

"I won't disappoint you. Or the Alliance," she promised softly.

Matilda looked up and smiled once again. "I know," she said and for the first time, Regan believed in herself.

…

Anderson applauded as the class of 2171 rose to accept the accolades of the audience, having graduated from Sydney TAFE with their Diplomas. Regan Shepard (she'd taken Matilda's surname) was amongst them with her Adult Tertiary Preparation Certificate and a Certificate III in Electronics. For the next year she would work on a Diploma of Electrical Engineering so she could enlist as a fully-fledged Infiltrator-class candidate.

Still scrawny and brassy-haired, Regan had still put on more weight and actually looked her age of seventeen instead of thirteen. She was now fitted with biotic implants but childhood malnutrition meant that she would never be more powerful than the strongest L1s, though she certainly possessed precision with her mass effect fields.

"How is she doing?" Anderson asked under the cover of the crowd's cheering as the students left the stage, line by line to avoid a stampede.

"She's smart and doesn't know the meaning of quitting," Matilda answered quietly. "She's lousy at krav maga so I wound up teaching her some boxing techniques instead."

"That explains the Boxing Kangaroo stuffed toy you're giving her," Anderson observed with some amusement.

"Yeah." Matilda smirked. "Poor kid won't accept gifts unless she's earned them."

"Has she been in any trouble?"

"She did flatten a drunk who catcalled her but that's about it." His old combat instructor sighed as Anderson raised an eyebrow. She was supposed to have reported that. "For gods' sakes, he was about seventy, Anderson, and she beat me to it."

"Does she have a temper?" he asked cautiously.

"Doesn't everyone? Hers tends to simmer until it erupts, but I've only seen her lose it once at a video game."

Anderson nodded as Regan arrived. She saluted them crisply, her bright blue eyes shining with pride.

"Good job, Cadet," he told her.

"Thanks, sir." Regan smiled broadly, a far cry from the sullen girl of a year ago, and the expression got broader as she was handed the kangaroo.

"Skippy!" she announced and Anderson found himself chuckling. "Thanks, Mat- ma'am."

"You can call me Matilda. It's a day off." There was a bit of sadness in Matilda's voice though and Anderson made a mental note to chase it up.

"Yes, Matilda." Regan hugged the kangaroo toy and Anderson felt a bit of a pang. This was the closest she'd ever get to a childhood.

He chased away the feeling. Regan was already skilled in violence and its ways; his job was to point that in a beneficial direction. "Since you've got your high school diploma, you now qualify as a Cadet and will receive the appropriate stipend. In return, you're on call for emergency operations and training at Enoggera Barracks once a month," he announced.

"Wait, you're paying me, sir?" Regan's eyes went round as a full moon.

"You're a Cadet. You just happen to be one with a year's suspended sentence left," Anderson reminded her.

"You'll have to pay board now," Matilda added quietly. "The cost of rent is supposed to be about 30%, so that's what you'll be paying."

Regan nodded and Anderson flashed the woman a look. She was compensated for taking on Regan and charging board wasn't supposed to happen. Unless Regan was eating like two horses and breaking things.

"Go grab yourself a drink and please get us a couple two," Anderson said, handing her a credit chit. The girl took the hint and vanished, kangaroo still tucked under her arm.

"Regan trusts nothing that's given for free," Matilda said once she was gone. "I intend to save up the cash and buy her a decent sniper rifle and body armour when she enlists."

He ah'ed in understanding. "How long until you think she'll be Special Forces?"

"Ten years unless something big happens," was the woman's prompt reply. "Patel was right to bring you into it. I…"

She paused and looked at him, falling silent, and Anderson sighed in frustration. "You what?"

"I think she'll pick up where you left off with the Council and succeed," Matilda finally said quietly. "As a soldier, Regan's… competent. Not brilliant, but decent. But when she's backed into a corner and making her own rules of engagement, she's a fucking genius."

"Have you told her that?"

"No." Matilda's face was sombre. "It's something she'll need to learn for herself."

Anderson's lips pursed. "The brass has its own candidates for Spectre status."

"I'm sure they're good ones. I never said that Regan would be the first, only that one day, she'll be serving as one." Matilda flashed him a grin. "Or I'll eat my combat boots with spicy sauce."

Anderson echoed her grin as Regan came back with soft drinks. "I'd pay to see that."

"Pay to see what, sir?" Regan asked as she handed over the drinks.

"Pay to see Waltzing Matilda eat combat boots with spicy sauce," Anderson informed the Cadet.

"Come back to our place and eat my chilli beef, sir. It'd be much the same experience."

Anderson found himself startled into laughter. Patel had been right – there was a good kid beneath the gangbanger and she'd begun to emerge after only a year.

"Well, seeing as I couldn't inflict that on myself, I'm buying dinner tonight," he announced, feeling an odd sense of paternal affection for the girl. "Anything you want?"

"Chinese," Regan and Matilda said in unison and Anderson laughed again. The two were more alike than they realised.

"Let's go," he said, somehow certain that Matilda was right about Shepard.

…

The BDUs felt comfortable, a prefab mix of synthetic cotton and linen that was better than most of the clothing she'd worn in her life. Regan stared at her reflection in the mirror, ruffling her newly trimmed chin-length hair, and almost felt like a soldier.

Matilda had saved up all her board and arranged for her to have the best that could be arranged. Solaris Amp Mk. 1, Bluewire Tool omnitool, a Naginata sniper rifle and a set of light Mantis body armour meant that Regan would go in better armed and armoured than most recruits.

"Can I punch someone who makes fun of Skippy?" she asked as Matilda's worn face appeared in the mirror behind her.

"Only if you want to end up in the brig," Matilda answered with some amusement. "You're looking the part. Now act it and don't embarrass me."

Regan turned around to face the woman who was probably the closest thing to a maternal figure she'd ever had. "I won't," she promised.

"I know." Matilda smiled. "You were born to be a soldier, Regan."

"Only because Anderson found me and you taught me," Regan replied softly and sincerely.

"Maybe, Regan, maybe." Matilda nodded to the duffel bag containing her stuff. "You'd better get going or you'll miss the flight to Brisbane Coast."

Regan surprised the pair of them by hugging her. Then she dared to ask the question that had been bothering her since graduation. "Why did Anderson call you 'Waltzing Matilda'?"

"You mean aside from my name?" Matilda snickered. "Because I used to 'waltz in and take everything over'. I used to be his commanding officer, you know."

"Good God," Regan breathed. She never would have guessed.

Then she saluted Matilda for the last time. "Thanks for everything, ma'am."

"Goodbye and good luck, Private Shepard." Matilda saluted her and then it was time to leave, once and for all.