Chapter Text
AJ was two years old when Kaidan had to ship out again.
OK; she was twenty-seven months and four days old. Not that he’d been counting.
And it wasn’t that he hadn’t been gone before. He’d made trips to London, to Vancouver, the odd not-a-mission-more-a-placeholder-of-galactic-authority sort of trip to a struggling colony or two. The longest had been ten days, and after four he’d been obsessively checking his ‘tool, pestering Garrus for photos, vids, anything about his girl.
Their girl.
Kaidan rubbed his temples and stared into his coffee mug. It was the first time he’d been sent out on super-secret-Spectre-nonsense-business, as Joker put it. First time he was gone silent; first time he was gone with no real knowledge of when he’d be back; first time he’d be doing super-deadly-Spectre-stuff (another phrase of the pilot’s).
Well, at least he had Joker. The two of them had shared more than one whiskey-laced night in mourning, for different reasons and the same--for EDI and for Shepard, for a limp infiltration mech and a body only recognized by what shouldn’t have been there.
He pushed away the memory that it had taken Miranda’s incredibly detailed notes and near-salarian memory to convince the medical crews that the cybernetic implants and skin, muscle, and bone weaves retrieved from the Citadel weren’t husk remains somehow covered with fragments of N7-quality armor materials. He hadn’t been there, but she’d told him, afterwards, when he’d insisted on knowing how they knew, how they were sure it was her.
Needing to clear his mind of that image, he pulled up a flickering photo of himself and AJ on his ‘tool, unable to smooth the smile that tugged at his lips.
“More photos, sir?” Westmoreland asked, holding her own coffee mug. “She’s the cutest thing.”
“Turning into a regular terror,” he said, tilting his arm so the image was clearer. “She’s picking up way too many languages.”
“I have a nephew her age. Don’t think he’s shut up since he’s started talking.” She suddenly got that vaguely distracted look all soldiers did when their earpiece started up. “They need me upstairs.”
“Dismissed, Private. Don’t work too hard.”
“You as well, sir.”
As she left, Kaidan briefly reflected on the Normandy’s crew. She carried only just more than a skeleton crew--partially because she had to, with so few available, and partially because it wasn’t technically an Alliance mission. Many of those aboard, though, had served under Shepard, and were more than willing to sign on with Spectre Alenko.
It was... odd, being here, without Chakwas, Liara, Garrus, Tali. Some familiar faces, but only a couple of the important ones. Joker was the only one trusted to fly the Normandy, now, without EDI. Cortez had tried to come on as shuttle pilot, but some last-minute need for his skills with fighters had pulled him away. Kaidan regretted he hadn’t fought for Steve’s presence here on the Normandy. He needed that skill at his back.
“Hey, Major!”
He’d kept James, though, and a smile tugged at his lips. “Vega,” he replied. Hackett had resisted handing him over, but between the fact that the soldier was an N7 candidate--and probably a Spectre candidate, eventually--and that they had no way of figuring out what Kaidan might be facing, out in the void, Hackett agreed that Kaidan needed someone solid at his six. It hadn’t hurt that the Spectre had pointed out that Vega needed to learn leadership skills a bit more traditionally than under Collector and Reaper threats, perhaps from someone a little more balanced and less gung-ho than Shepard--give him some perspective.
James sat across from him, a protein bar and mug of coffee in hand. The man had a few more scars and another tat, but otherwise looked remarkably the same as he had during his first tour with the Normandy. “How’s the kid?”
“Great, except neither of us can understand her when she starts going in quarian. Translator doesn’t cover baby-babble. Tali’s overjoyed, of course.”
Vega grinned and tore another chunk out of his protein bar. Kaidan pursed his lips to avoid chuckling, taking a sip out of his mug to hide the motion. He scowled as soon as the excuse for coffee hit his lips.
“Ever heard of cowboy coffee, Major?”
“Rings a bell.”
“Used to just dump coffee grounds right into hot water, not filter it. Drink the entire thing. Sludge. It was real coffee beans, though, not what we’re drinking these days.”
“Flavored and colored caffeinated liquid, you mean?”
“Uh-huh.” James raised an eyebrow at his mug, sighed, and chugged the whole thing in one go. Kaidan watched him, saw the adam’s apple of his throat bob once, twice, three times...
Snap out of it, LT, he thought, as clearly as if Ash had told him, all those years ago. Kaidan shifted in his seat, as if that would rein in the twitching in his fatigues. He snorted softly in laughter and took a gulp from his mug, pulling a face as the taste ruined his palate. It wasn’t as if he was intentionally celibate, really, but juggling a two year old, both Spectre and Alliance duties, and post-war cleanup really left no time for striking up a romantic relationship. Many were in his position, and while the oldest profession in the galaxy had resumed as soon as there were bedrooms, Kaidan knew there was no way he could make such a visit and not hear about it in the news. It wasn’t like it was before, with Sha’ira, and as visible as he was, half his goings-on were reported. There was enough pressure, what with the press trying to get photos of AJ, asking prying questions, the tabloids speculating on her real father, why she was being raised by a human and a turian, how she’d be scarred for life being raised by men, one of them an alien...
“You okay there?”
“Hm? Oh. Just... hoping nothing blows up in the press when I’m not there. Garrus doesn’t care what they say about him, but if they say anything about AJ when he’s in earshot...”
“Man’s gotta protect his girl.”
“Right. Except the turian reaction to that is closer to evisceration than ‘no comment’.” Kaidan sighed. “Last time he overloaded the camera. It burned the tech. That took some serious smoothing over.”
“I get asked about it, even.”
“What?”
“Who her father is.”
Oh. That. While it was fairly obvious to those close to them who’d served aboard the SR-1--and that number was fair few, now--Garrus and Kaidan hadn’t exactly broadcast AJ’s parentage. The turian clearly had no genetic claim, but he and Shepard had been seen enough together that, with a bit of carefully orchestrated nudging by Liara, it was a comfortably accepted fact that he had adopted Shepard’s daughter just as he would have if she were alive. Speculations he’d heard ranged from conspiracy theories involving the Illusive Man to breed an army of Shepards to her and Garrus wanting a child and using a donor. Garrus had admitted that that was the rumor he tried to circulate most--it would likely have been the truth once they’d been able to settle down. (There had also been a very tempting bit of gossip going that The Enkindlers had granted Shepard the gift of immaculate conception--while Garrus had been confused, Kaidan had laughed until his sides ached. Human and hanar religion was an interesting combination.)
“Odd that people ask you. I mean, not because you didn’t know her, but...”
“People ask me all sorts of things. Classified shit, Spectre stuff, whether Cerberus was really working for the Reapers. I don’t even understand most of what they ask. It’s nuts. I bet it’s not even half of what she had to handle, though.”
“Something like that,” Kaidan said, quietly, and sighed. He’d insisted on having Vega aboard for a variety of reasons, and one of them was that he could trust him. Somehow, along the line, he’d been left out of one of the more important pieces of information. “Mind coming upstairs? Mission-sensitive stuff we should go over.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.” Vega trashed the wrapper from his protein bar and put his mug in the wash; Kaidan dumped the rest of his coffee and followed suit before leading the way to the elevator.
Mission-sensitive, my ass. More like Kaidan-critical.