Chapter Text
On Garrus’ thirtieth day of fatherhood as Tali bathes their daughter in their kitchen sink in water made milky by dissolved sanitising powder the question is asked.
“Have you spoken to your father?” Jane is slumped at their table nursing a coffee. She has gotten the least sleep of any of them recently, being the only one who can feed the asari infant.
“He wasn’t exactly in favour of our little arrangement last we spoke. I doubt having a child to solidify it would go down well,” he says.
“Garrus don’t you think he at least deserves to know he even has a grandchild?” Her words are heavy and not just from her exhaustion. By the sink Tali coos to their little girl in khelish.
“He won’t acknowledge her,”
“You don’t know that,”
“I know him; everything by the book. I’m about as far from it as a turian can get. This might just be what he finally disowns me over.”
Tali scoops their daughter from her cleansing bath and swaddles her quickly in a blanket but Valia still begins to cry at being removed from the warm water. Jane visibly grits her teeth at the noise and downs the rest of her coffee with a vigour she usually reserved for combat. She looks downright haggard. Her usually pale skin is sallow making the dark rings under her eyes all the more prominent, only during the darkest hours of the Reaper War can Garrus recall her looking so worn.
By the sink Tali fusses; a nervous ball of energy encased in an environmental suit. She brings the infant awkwardly to her shoulder and sways humming under her breath but Valia refuses to be calmed. She struggles to free her limbs from the blanket sobs climbing to wails and even with her helmet obscuring her face Tali’s expression is lost.
“Give her here,” Sighing deeply Jane slides out from the table and holds her arms out. Tali eagerly does as told and Jane’s expression softens as Valia is passed into her hands. She settles her into the crook of her arm and rocks her with far more ease than Tali.
“Keelah I’m useless at this,” Tali slumps against the bench
“You’ll get there. I’m pretty sure the only reason she stops for me is she’s figured out where her meals come from. Isn’t that right baby girl?” Jane brings the rapidly quieting Valia to her shoulder and nods in place of the infant.
“Yes it is, yes that’s right,” She kisses Valia’s nose and each cheek loudly. Tali giggles and runs a gloved hand gently over their daughters still developing crest; the closest she can get to kissing until her immune system adapts to the infant.
From the table Garrus watches them; Jane shifting Valia to rest in the crook of her arm so she can draw Tali into her side. His three girls. He loves them all so much. He would gladly be disowned for them.
Yet he cannot help but think on what he would say to his father. Because he tried. He really did try to confirm to his wishes. All his life he tried. He shot at bottles, only to line them all up and shoot them again for hours because that was what his Father expected. He went above and beyond during his conscription because he was a Vakarian and that was what was expected. He joined C-Sec when he could have had Spectre training because that was expected.
And even when the galaxy was going to hell around their fringes he still tried to do as expected.
He went on dates with turian women. Women with standing, titles and lineages that rivalled Vakarian. He could have made strong alliances and he should have been grateful. He wasn’t exactly a catch. Age and appearance aside, he just wasn’t much of a turian. And as far as his father was concerned no amount of saluting from the Generals was going to change the fact that he had abandoned his post at C-Sec to join a wild goose chase across the galaxy under a Spectre.
But still he had tried, he had gone on those dates. Set up with all the formality and finesse of a salarian breeding contract. And he had hated every one.
Every one except the last.
The actual date had been terrible. But afterwards; when he had finished embarrassing himself and couldn’t be bothered taking the rapid transit all the way back to his accommodation, he had remembered the apartment Shepard was staying in was nearby.
He must have looked a sorry sight on Anderson’s doorstep. Facial markings smudged from a slap that still stung and he had no idea what he had said to earn it. But whatever it was had also been enough to earn him a glass of wine in his face.
Shepard had laughed at him across the intercom and before he could plead his case and request sanctuary, she was calling someone over to come and see.
Tali’s helmet appeared on the screen and then she joined the Commander in laughing at him.
Eventually after much needling they had allowed him inside.
“What’s the password?” Tali sing-songed while Shepard snorted.
“I’m freezing and smell like an alcoholic?” He ground out.
“Nope!” Tali crowed.
“Let me in!”
“Say the password,”
“Normandy?” Garrus tried.
“”Noo~oo,” Tali’s vocaliser hitched a bit trailing into an electronic buzz as she sang the word.
“My Commanding Officer and the chief Engineer are sadistic individuals who find joy in the misfortune of others?
“.... lucky guess,”
Once inside and still chuckling over his appearance Shepard directed him to a bathroom with orders to leave his wine covered suit by the door and she’d scrounge up some clothing for him. He had emerged from a brief steam to find she’d made good on her word as well as she could. A bathrobe, perhaps the only thing she’d been able to find in Anderson’s apartment that a turian could wear, waited for him on the bed.
Garrus donned it and left what he could only assume was a guest room to find Shepard and Tali in the spacious lounge. They were on the sofa surrounded by bottles of alcohol, dextro and levo, human junk foods were gathered on the coffee table in front of Shepard while the space before Tali was taken up by sealed nutrient paste tubes. The large screen mounted on the wall was playing a vid Garrus recognised immediately. Fleet and Flotilla; it had been Solana’s, along with every other teenaged girl on Palaven’s favourite when it came out.
Shepard tossed him a cylinder of dextro alcohol which he deftly caught as he entered the room fully.
“Sent your suit down to the laundry, you’ll get it back in a few hours if they can get the stains out,” She explained and next to her Tali’s snorted.
“Sooo,” Shepard continued airily, “How was your evening?”
Tali broke into a round of giggles at that.
“Terrible.” Garrus replied tersely scowling at the quarian who’s giggles had shown no sign in subsiding.
“We gathered that much, care to elaborate?”
“I got slapped and had wine thrown in my face. It stung by the way.” Tali’s laughter which had been at the point of stopping started up again in earnest.
“Yeah, we got that part I wanted to know why,” Shepard said.
“I don’t know! All I did was say maybe she was a little too old to be shading her plates like that. But she asked me what I thought of them! Why would she ask if she didn’t want me to answer? I told her what I thought and then she slapped me and then she threw my drink in my face. Not her drink, my drink. Who shades their plates at our age anyway? I don’t know!” Garrus finished his rant and was met by silence, sadly it didn’t last long.
Shepard and Tali at least had the decency to give a moments pause before they once again began laughing at him. Unfortunately, this time they didn’t stop. And this was not mere giggling. This was gasping for breath, stomach clutching, falling over, snorting laughter. Surprisingly this time Tali recovered first.
“Kee-Keelah you’re hopeless Garrus,” It wasn’t long however before she relapsed bracing herself against Shepard on the sofa.
“I’m surprised she didn’t slap both cheeks for that!” The human exclaimed.
“Maybe she did; how would we tell?”
“What else did you do? Insult her dress?”
“She wasn’t wearing a dress,” Garrus bristled and then as if she were a teenager and not a living legend leading one of the finest forces the galaxy had ever seen Jane Shepard let out a two-toned whistle that while Garrus had heard many times from his C-Sec days, mainly in human wards, he was still a little unsure of the meaning of. Tali appeared to know however because she once again collapsed against the Commander with laughter
“Oh Keelah I think I dislodged a portacath!”
“Well I’m glad you two think this is so funny,” Adjusting the robe which unsurprisingly having been designed for a human kept pulling across his cowl Garrus sat down in an armchair and twisted the top from the cylinder.
“Come on Garrus lighten up. Look at it this way, you still have us,”
He regarded the human woman and then the quarian one in turn,
“You’ll forgive me if that doesn’t do much in the way of boosting my confidence,” He remarked dryly.
“Hey! You should be so lucky Vakarian!” Tali pointed an accusing finger at him. Shepard just chuckled.
“Maybe call it quits on the whole dating thing until the galaxy is saved,” She suggested.
“Isn’t the end of life as we know it supposed to make paring off easier? That's the way it always works in those disaster vids,”
“I think in real life people have higher standards and in your case, common sense,” Tali said.
“Well this is all just balm for my wounded soul,”
“You came to us Vakarian.” Shepard put in taking a swig of her beverage.
“My mistake. What were you doing before I turned up on your doorstep wounded and heartbroken?” He enquired.
“Just watching chick flicks. Tali wasn’t about to let me get away with having never seen Fleet and Flotilla,”
“It’s a cinematic masterpiece!”
“Sorry I interrupted girls' night,”
“It’s ok, the more the merrier right?” Shepard shrugged.
“I can rewind the vid to the start if you’d like to watch it with us, we’re not that far in,” Tali offered.
“We haven’t even gotten to the turians yet,” Shepard said.
“Why not? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it entirely before,”
Tali made a shocked spluttering noise and stood up ushering him from the chair he was seated in to the sofa with her and Shepard all the while proclaiming the utter travesty that neither of them had ever seen Fleet and Flotilla before
And they had spent the night like that.
The three of them on the sofa. First they watched the musical version of the vid; Garrus’ least favourite. Solana had played the soundtrack near nonstop in her youth until he had begun literally counting down the days until his conscription began just so he could get away from it. Because ‘She can play what she likes in her room and if it bothers you that much why don’t you go outside and do some work?’ Then they watched the uncut version; Garrus drifted off somewhere during the director's cut.
He awoke hours later; the vid had run its course and the player had powered down. The lights had turned themselves off but the shutters were only half closed so the light from the silversun strip filled the room in lines. Shepard was fast asleep on his right her head resting on his shoulder and her arm draped over his chest. Tali was on his left also leaning against him. Her head had come to rest against the front of her helmet giving him a clearer view of the delicate features behind the smoky purple of her visor.
And that was the moment.
The exact moment that he realised he could stay like this. More than could; he wanted to stay like this. And he would suffer through a thousand terrible dates and endue having ryncol thrown in his face if only he could find his way here with the two of them. Commander Jane Shepard and Tali’Zorah nar Rayya vas Normandy.
He realised that he loved them.
It would take months, months of stumbling, embarrassment and false starts that weren’t. Of months by a human hospital bed, praying, begging and pleading to whatever higher power would listen for Garrus to realise they both felt the same way.
Three-way relationships, while not something you saw every day, were not unheard of in human culture. They were however quite common to quarians having often been formed aboard the Flotilla in times of population imbalance. Tali herself was the product of such a relationship. ‘Aunt’ had been the closest approximation his and Shepard’s translators had been able to come up with for the Khelish term that described Shala’Raan’s position in her family.
Triad relationships were unheard of in turian culture. His father was not pleased.
The war was over, he had said in a grainy vidcall Garrus had managed to make from a human hospital in the ruins of London. Not two metres away through a wall Tali was helping Jane preform the simplest of tasks; sitting up, feeding herself, all the while thanking the Gods she was alive.
The Reapers were gone his father continued and now it was time to rebuild. Garrus agreed and said that was why, when Jane was well enough he would be going with her and Tali to Rannoch.
There was so much to be done. The quarians had, at Tali’s urging, opened their planet, with so much room it would take them generations to even begin populating it, to any refugees who wished to come. The geth were constructing habitation zones across the planet to house them. Levo food sources were being installed using the same technology that had kept the fleet going during their centuries of exile and at their current schedule they would be fully prepared within ten standard months.
It was a mostly diplomatic exercise, Garrus explained to his father. The quarians had been a citadel race before their exile and were now under the leadership of Admirals Tali’Zorah vas Normandy, Shala’Raan vs Tonbay and Zaal’Koris vas Qwib-Qwib taking steps to become one again. They had interested groups from nearly every species.
It was quiet, he continued, which Jane needed to fully recover. But not so quiet, he added with a chuckle that she’d go mad and begin looking for trouble as she was wont to do. Tali needed to be on Rannoch to serve her people and if they ever wanted to see her living outside a suit, she needed to begin the program the geth were running simulating viruses to build her immune system.
And then before he could go into the position the Admiralty Board had offered him coordinating a civilian police force as they broke away from the martial law that had governed the flotilla his father had asked just what it was he thought he was doing.
Going off to Rannoch with a human and a quarian. His place was on Palaven with the Hierarchy. It was all well and good running around the galaxy, although he could tell from his father’s expression not that well and good. But now there was work to be done and...
“We’re together,” Garrus had burst out cutting his father off midsentence.
For a moment there was silence. The screen before him fizzled and Garrus was afraid the tenuous connection had been lost or worse that his father had hung up. But then with a burst of static that set his teeth on edge the image came back. His father’s mouth moved and blitzes of sound came through the speaker out of sync.
“Dad! Dad I think I’m losing you the signal's weak,” A glance down the corridor revealed he was not the only one experiencing difficulties. Humans, gaunt faced and weary crowded around omnitools desperately trying to regain connections with their families on the other end.
There was more static as the image solidified.
“...Tell me these things... bzzt ...you always just... bzzt ...own way and.... bzzt ...the human... bzzt... or... bzzt... quarian?”
“Dad the connections cutting out, say again?”
“Which... bzzt ..is it?... bzzt... human or... bzzt... the quarian?”
“Both actually.” The words still sounded a little strange and all that rested on them was still hard to comprehend.
“... bzzt... What!?... bzzt.... not how.... bzzt.... see you now.... bzzt... try harder.... bzzt... plenty of turian... bzzt...” Before anything else could be said the connection was lost completely.
Most of the humans let out cries of dismay and disappointment at having their precious contact with their loved ones cut so short but Garrus couldn’t help but feel relieved. The hardest part was over; his father knew about them and while Garrus knew he had far from heard the last of it, he had at the very least made it over that hurdle.
The last of it had come in the form of a very angry holo call on the sadly far more reliable systems of the Normandy.
It was hardly the first time he'd been called a sorry excuse for a turian, especially by his father but it was the first time he’d been called a sorry excuse for a Vakarian. And it hurt .
They had yelled, said things they both regretted, bared their teeth and yelled some more.
When his father said he was glad Mom was dead and that even if she hadn’t been he would have been glad she wouldn’t recognise him Garrus lost the channel.
Jane and Tali found him afterwards in the bathroom furiously scrubbing at the band of blue that bridged his face. The fresher applications of the dye had come away easily, but the older coats dutifully applied weekly since he reached puberty stained the plate and he could not get rid of them. The water in the sink had long turned from clear to blue.
They went to Rannoch. They built a house on a hill overlooking the ocean. The home Tali had always dreamed of; the one her father had not been able to give her.
Jane adjusts to her prosthetics and Joker stops calling with suggestions the two of them should form a ‘Cripples Club’
“C’mon Commander it’ll be great. We’ll have our own secret language and everything. I’m thinking morse code preformed with canes. Whaddya think?”
They nurse Tali through the fevers the geth simulate marvelling as she pulls through each one stronger than the last.
He, at long last, finds his niche. And who would have thought after all these years that his path truly lay in consulting. He’d been an above average recruit; he’d done well enough during conscription to be recommended for Spectre training after all. He’d been a good detective, certainly his career at C-Sec was nothing to scoff at. Unlike his one as a vigilante. But if the Reaper war had taught him anything it was that consulting and coordinating others was where he actually did his best work. Tali had joked once that she was glad the imminent destruction of organic life had improved his career opportunities. They’d all had no idea.
They stay in touch with the old crew as best they can.
Jacob names his daughter Harmony and there are thousands of children across Tuchanka with the name ‘Shepard.’
Wrex, as promised, names his first-born daughter Mordin. He blindsides them all by naming his first-born son Kaidan.
Jack gets an official degree in education and child development. She promptly burns it saying she doesn’t need a fucking certificate to tell people she’s the bitch they want to teach them how to learn their fucking biotics right.
Samara touches base every once in a while, her messages are surprisingly uplifting and hopeful.
They all look at each other knowingly every time there is a report of a grand theft with no leads.
Dr Chakwas surprisingly retires, even more surprisingly she does so with Zaeed.
“I don’t even want to think about it!” Jane announces when they get their ‘Greetings from Elysium’ Ecard, “It’s like thinking about your parents having sex! It’s like thinking about Anderson and Kahlee Sanders!”
Staying in contact with Miranda is surprisingly easy; Oriana is on the team setting up the human habitation zone and the ex-Cerberus operative tasks them with keeping an eye out for her. Because, yes, she knows her sister is an adult but she still worries. And besides she’s been monitoring her communications and she doesn't trust this boy she’s been seeing so watch for that. They know it’s only a matter of time until Miranda digs deep enough and discovers Oriana’s beau is Kolyat Krios and none of them particularly want to be there for that.
Grunt sends Jane holos of things he’s killed. She installs a shelf over their environmental control panel to display them on. Tali says it’s a good thing they’re out of the way and don’t get many casual visitors; the collection of pictures showing a bloodied krogan standing over nearly always unidentifiable corpses would be enough to make anyone doubt the sanity of their hosts.
Ashley drops lines when she can, keeping them updated on herself and her missions. And if her and Vega’s messages seem to relay nearly identical undertakings well surely that’s just a coincidence. Even if they diverge quite suddenly when James officially begins the ICT program and his messages change to updates on that.
They attend Liara and Javik’s bonding ceremony
Javik tuts throughout muttering about how there was no need for such things in his cycle and only stops when Aethyta tells him to shove something unmentionable in it. But no one misses the almost smile that settles across his face as he takes Liara’s hands and the Priestess overseeing the rite proclaims the words that bind them to each other.
Aethyta cries.
They build their own place, build their own lives. The three of them. He doesn’t speak to his Father again.
Then Liara visits and brings her daughter.
Alright how y'all doing? You with me so far? Everything making sense? I'm not normally one for present tense but it's what I inexplicitly chose to write this fic in, in the parts where it applies. Anyway this is just the start so I hope you're still on board.
I'd love to hear what you think. Thoughts on the premise, the use of tenses, the choice of perspective, anything and everything you have to say really. I accept criticism of my work I only ask that it be constructive.
Ari Out!