Work Text:
"Obviously, you're not obligated to do this if you don't want to, Garrus," Castis assured. "If you and Shepard don't want to. If you decline, there are other relatives they can try, now that they have access to the Hierarchy database." He paused, mandibles flickering on the video feed. "But the option is there, if it's something the two of you want."
Garrus was quiet for a long time. This bomb that had just been dropped on him - this wasn't something he and Shepard had even begun to discuss. Until very recently, bringing it up with her would've been unfathomable. Not while she was struggling so much just to get through every day. But, while he wouldn't say their little Normandy reunion party a few months prior had fixed everything, in hindsight, it had been a turning point. She was leaving the apartment more now, for leisure and not just for doctor's appointments and therapy. She'd begun showing more physical affection and calling her mother more often than she ever had. He'd even been entertaining the thought that she might want to get married soon. But still... kids? He wasn't sure if she wanted them at all, let alone right now.
It took him a few minutes to notice that his father was still watching him, waiting patiently for his response. "How-" He cleared his throat. "How soon do they need an answer?"
"The sooner the better, obviously. They want to get these children in homes as fast as they can." Castis sighed sympathetically. "I know it's a lot to take in so quickly, but I don't think it can wait longer than a week, at the most."
Garrus nodded numbly. "A week. Right."
"Son, I want you to know I won't think less of you if you say no. Taking in a child you don't want-"
"I know, Dad. Trust me, I wouldn't do that. And Shepard sure as hell wouldn't."
"Of course," Castis replied. By now, he had learned enough about Shepard's childhood to know what Garrus meant. "I... I'll be here if you need to talk about it."
Garrus couldn't help smiling a little, hearing the awkward note in his father's subvocals. Even years later, neither of them was quite used to the way the strain in their relationship had all but melted away after the war. "Thanks, Dad. I've-" He turned at the sound of the apartment door opening. "Shepard's home. I'll call you later."
They ended the call, and Garrus, filled with the adrenaline that comes with nerves, left the spare bedroom-turned-office and made a beeline for the back stairs. Turning on the first landing, he came to a halt at the sight of Shepard standing at the bottom, realizing he didn't have a clue how he was going to tell her about this. 'Hey, sweetie, how was lunch with Ash? Wanna adopt a kid?' didn't quite seem like the way to go. Maybe he could-
"Garrus?"
He shook himself out of his panicked brainstorming to find Shepard staring at him with a bemused look on her face. "Shepard. Hey," he greeted her, deliberately relaxing his rigid stance.
She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine. Let's... yeah. Uh. Do you wanna watch a vid or something?" He started heading down the stairs again, trying to project nonchalance with every muscle in his body. He just needed to stall until he figured out how to do this. "There's a new-"
"Garrus." She placed a hand on his chest when he reached the bottom. She didn't apply enough pressure to physically stop him, but the touch was enough. "You're going to have to tell me what's going on." Her tone was firm, but he picked up on the anxiety lurking beneath the surface.
He sighed. The last thing he wanted was to make her fear the worst. "It's nothing bad, I promise. But we should sit down."
He settled his hand on her back and walked them over to the couch by the fireplace. Once they were seated, he took her hand and faced her, his mandibles twitching erratically as he tried to find the words to begin. Shepard just watched him, much like his father had after giving him this possibly life-altering news. But, despite his assurances, she was worried - she didn't like uncertainty. 'Get it together, Vakarian,' he chastised himself. "So..." He took a deep breath. "My dad just called. He... had some news."
"Is everyone alright?"
"Yeah, everyone's fine. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. I just need to... It's complicated."
She just continued watching him, but she squeezed his hand a little tighter - in encouragement or out of nerves, he wasn't sure. Maybe both.
"Okay," he said, steeling himself. "Let me just start at the beginning. Since the last relays are starting to come back online, the Hierarchy is reestablishing contact with the rest of the colonies. Since some of these places haven't had a reliable connection to the rest of the galaxy since the war ended, there are..." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "This whole time, the procedure for orphaned children has been to search Hierarchy records to find their closest living relatives and try to place the children with them. If they decline, they go on down the list. If they run out of options, there's a..." He paused, wishing there were a different term for what he was about to say. "Foster system. There's more oversight than what you went through," he quickly added when she tensed, "but it's still been stretched pretty thin. Sometimes a relative will resurface when contact is made with another colony, but that's... not happening very much anymore."
Shepard sat silently, looking at their entwined hands, expression unreadable. Even after four years together, her mask could be completely impenetrable to him when she wanted it to be. A minute or two passed before she looked up at him again. "Go on, Garrus."
He glanced off to the side, rubbing his neck with his free hand. "You can probably guess where this is going. They've been updating records for survivors on Invictus since the Minos Wasteland's relay was repaired a couple months ago - it's a mess, since half the population was fugitives from the Terminus. But yesterday, my dad got a call from the Family Reunification Service. They looked a girl up in the database and..." He shook his head, still in disbelief. "We - the Vakarians - are her closest living relatives."
Shepard tilted her head back and took a deep breath through her nose, keenly aware of Garrus' eyes on her. "They want you to take her," she stated, rather than asked.
Garrus coughed. "Yeah. Dad's a little old to go chasing a six-year-old around the house, especially by himself. And Solana-"
"Would have to leave active duty to raise a kid. Yeah." Abruptly, Shepard rocked up onto her feet and headed for the bar. "Do you want anything?" she called over her shoulder.
"Uh." Garrus blinked, then regained his wits. "Actually, yeah. That's not a bad idea." He followed her lead and took a seat on one of the stools while she rummaged around behind the bar.
"Beer or horosk? Tali finished off your brandy when she was here a couple weeks ago."
"Damn. Next time I'm telling her to bring her own," he said, just as he did after every visit from their quarian friend. "Give me a beer. I do still need to be able to form a sentence once I'm done."
She slid the bottle across the bar before pouring herself a whiskey, hesitating a moment, then making it a double. Shepard usually preferred mixed drinks to anything else, but it seemed like she just wanted to start drinking as soon as possible, in this case. He couldn't blame her.
After she came around and settled on the barstool next to him, she took a long sip of her whiskey and set her glass back down in front of her, keeping her eyes trained on it as she spoke. "So... they want you to adopt this kid."
Garrus took a few generous gulps of beer. "Yeah."
She rolled the glass between her hands. "What do you know about her?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Not much. Her name is Calain. Like I said, she's six, which means she was three when the war ended and she doesn't remember much. She's my fourth cousin once removed, so..." A lot of people have to be dead for me to be at the top of the list.
Shepard heard what he didn't say out loud and took another sip of her drink. "Where is she right now?"
"She's..." He faltered. He was afraid what he was about to say might end up guilting Shepard into agreeing to this, and he was trying very hard to avoid that. "She's in a kind of group home with other war orphans from her city. But it's not- believe me, she's safe and healthy, as much as any kid can be after surviving what they have."
She nodded, but he saw the wrinkle in her brow - she was worried anyway. "And, if you say no to this, they go down the list to the next closest relative, right?"
"Until they find someone to say yes, yeah. It's a six-month placement to make sure the fit is good for everyone before permanent adoption is considered."
Shepard went quiet again, taking periodic sips from her drink until the glass was empty. The bottle still sat on the bar, but she didn't reach for it. "How long do you have to decide?" she finally asked.
Garrus couldn't help feel unsettled by the fact that she hadn't once used the word 'we' during this conversation. "Dad said they can't wait longer than a week. But the sooner the better."
She hummed and finally looked up at him out of the corner of her eye. "Tell me what you're thinking?"
"What I... huh." He drained the last of his beer and turned in his stool to fully face her. "Well, I just found out about this minutes before you came home. And to be honest, all I've been doing is wondering what you've been thinking. For example, why do you keep talking about it like it's only my decision?"
She shrugged. "It's you they're asking, isn't it?"
"What are you- Yes, because I'm her cousin, but that doesn't mean you don't get a say. Can-" He slid a hand closer to her on the bar, but she didn't take it. "Can you please tell me what I'm missing here? Why are you hiding from me?"
At that, the stoic shield over her face melted away and Garrus saw the fear there, plain as day. "I didn't..." she started. "I didn't want to presume. We've never actually talked about this, and it's your family so I didn't want to, I don't know... influence your decision, I guess."
"Vi," he said pleadingly, waiting until she fully met his gaze. "I wish you'd give me a little more credit than that." He couldn't keep the hurt out of his voice or his subvocals. "I'd never force a child on you and I'd never leave you."
She shook her head. "I know. It's not... Ugh," she groaned. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't- I didn't explain that right." She rubbed her forehead and breathed deeply for a few moments. "Garrus." She swallowed hard. "I want to do it."
His mouth fell open. "You... you do?"
She finally placed her hand over his on the bar. "Yeah. I mean, I'm freaked out because it's not like I had an example for a stable parental figure growing up, but that's also why I want to do it. If I can keep one kid from going through that..." She half shrugged, trying for a weak smile. "I can't be worse than the alternative, right?"
Garrus hesitated. On one hand, hearing her say that she wanted to adopt a child with him was quickly making him realize how much he had actually wanted this outcome, even if he didn't know it when he woke up that morning, or even when they began this conversation. On the other... "Like I said, there are a lot of safeguards in the Hierarchy's fostering and adoption system - it wouldn't be like it was on Earth. I don't want you to agree just because of that. And another relative might take her before it even comes to that."
She nodded. "I know. But she's waited long enough for a real home. This... feels right to me. The timing - if this had come up six months ago I wouldn't have been ready." She paused and bit her lip. "But like I said, we never talked about it. So I was being cagey because I didn't want to make you feel like you had to say yes just because I wanted it."
Garrus quickly took her other hand. "To be honest, I had no idea which way I was leaning before I told you. I was just in shock. But it feels right to me, too. If you're sure."
She took a breath. "I want to say yes, I'm sure. But I also don't think half an hour is long enough to decide to have a kid. So... let's sleep on it?"
His mandibles flared and he leaned over to press his forehead to hers. "Sounds like a plan."
Shepard squeezed Garrus' hand for at least the eighth time since they'd arrived at Docking Bay B15. PDA usually made her uncomfortable, but her nerves were really getting the better of her here. This wasn't how most people became parents - she idly wondered if it would have been easier not to worry so much if she was distracted by the Herculean effort of childbirth.
"It's going to be fine," he murmured in her ear. It struck her as odd that he seemed as calm as he did, considering how frantic he'd been about childproofing their apartment for the last few weeks since the paperwork was finalized. Maybe he'd just gotten all his nervous energy out then while she saved hers up for this moment. Or maybe he was just putting on a brave face for her sake. Either way, she tried to soak it in. Calain was probably scared enough, and a panicking human... caregiver would only make it worse.
Shepard inhaled sharply when the arrival of the Hatysa was announced over the loudspeaker and the Hierarchy frigate glided gracefully into position at the docking clamps. The next ten minutes as the ship completed docking procedures were agonizing, her characteristic sniper's patience nowhere to be found. Finally, the doors slid open and about a dozen turian children ranging from toddlers to teenagers filed out, herded by their temporary caretakers. Shepard had expected there to be more, but this ship was only the first of likely many to transport war orphans off of Invictus to be placed with family on the Citadel - the first connections contacted usually didn't work out, Castis had explained to them.
She craned her neck, trying to get eyes on the little girl they were waiting for, but Garrus' height gave him an advantage. "Got her!" His triumphant tone hearkened back to his days spotting cloaked enemies on the battlefield in a way that Shepard might have found morbidly funny if she weren't so unbearably on edge. He tugged her by the hand, leading her through the small crowd closer to the ship's berth. Once in the open, Calain was easy to spot - while her deep brown plates weren't out of the ordinary, she was the only child with a brace on her leg. Broken bones were always especially dangerous for turians, and without so much as medigel available to her until it was much too late, hers had never had the chance to heal properly. Still, according to their conversations with the group home's staff, it hardly seemed to slow her down.
Calain was sticking close to one of the social workers from Invictus, gripping her hand like a lifeline as her eyes roamed the vast expanse of the docking bay. Garrus waved to catch the worker's attention while Shepard felt frozen in place, staring at the little girl who was about to become part of their family. She'd been so sure up until now - she was still sure - but why had no one told her how terrifying this would be?
As far as Shepard could tell, she blinked and suddenly the social worker was standing in front of them with Calain staring up at her, tiny mandibles slack and blue eyes (startlingly similar to Garrus' despite the distant relation) wide as could be. They had been warned that she had never seen a human in person before, so her reaction wasn't such a surprise. All at once, Shepard snapped back into focus, some latent instincts from looking out for the younger kids on the streets of Chicago resurfacing. Get on her level. Make her feel safe.
She was distantly aware of Garrus exchanging some pleasantries with the social worker, but she quietly let go of his hand and - slowly, so as not to startle her - crouched down to Calain's height. "Hi." Shepard smiled softly. "My name is Viola. It's nice to meet you, Calain."
Garrus and the other turian had stopped speaking to watch them, and a few long, tense moments passed, during which Shepard wondered whether the girl might actually be in shock. Then, finally, just as the social worker was about to break the silence, Calain blinked slowly and lifted her hand in a tiny, three-fingered wave.
Shepard was in love.