Chapter Text
It starts with a playdate.
Liara and Javik come to Rannoch monthly, and they always bring their daughter. Liara claims that the visits are for cultural immersion — “If she only knows life on Ilium, she will have a woefully deficient education,” — and Javik claims that it is unsafe to leave their daughter unattended, but they all know the truth: after war, after violence, after loss, there is something overwhelmingly healing about watching their daughters play with dolls together in the grass.
Valia and Yana are, above all things, their parents’ children. The older they get, the more interested they are in wandering off and seeking adventure, and the playground at the park closest to the home that Jane and Tali and Garrus share is no longer interesting to them. So after both Garrus and Javik locate a new playground and judge its equipment safe for even their daughters, the parents set their children free to roam and settle in to a late lunch.
“I love coming to visit in the summer,” Liara says with a sigh. “Rannoch is always beautiful, but at this time of year…”
“It is a nice planet,” Javik agrees. The highest praise, coming from him, and smiles spread freely around the table at the sound of it.
Javik scoffs, though he blinks his upper set of eyes in a pattern that indicates familiarity and warmth. “You are all still so soft. A pleasant summer may always give way to a fearful winter. It is best to remain vigilant.”
“Maybe so,” Jane murmurs, leaning her head against Garrus’s cowl and reaching for Tali’s hand in one fluid movement. Her eyes are fixed on the distance, where the light blue heads of their daughters are faintly visible through the flowers. “But I’m content to wait and see.”
The afternoon passes by quickly — typical, for old friends reminiscing — and when the sun begins to slip behind the horizon, they call their daughters home. Valia and Yana arrive with identical smiles, clothes covered in grass stains and freckles darkened with sunlight, and the two families separate for the evening — Liara, Javik, and Yana to their ship, and the Vakarian nar Normandy family to their nearby homestead.
“Did you have a good day?” Garrus asks, swinging their daughter up to rest against his cowl.
“Yes!” Valia exhales with a trill, her tongue pressed to the roof of her mouth in the closest possible approximation of enthusiastic turian subvocals. “She says there’s a place where you can fly through the sky, and that Auntie Liara let her put her hands up in the air so she could reach the clouds!”
Tali shoots Garrus and Shepard a bewildered look. “I don’t think Liara would bring Yana with her on a mission.”
“No, Mom, not to work. To the park with the animals!”
Garrus presses his head against Valia’s for a brief moment. “I don’t remember seeing any animals at the park today, bright metal.”
Valia shakes her head vehemently. “No, it’s a far away park. Yana says I’m not big enough to go there but I think she’s wrong.” She smiles up at Garrus then, then turns her eyes to Jane. “I told her that I’m as big as she is, and since my Mom and Dad are really tall and and that I’m going to be really tall too, that means I can touch the clouds. I can, right?”
“Of course, baby girl. You can do whatever you want.”
But by the time they send her off to her room for a bath and bedtime, all thoughts of flying through the air and touching the clouds have vanished from their minds, and they fall into their bed that night with no idea what the following days will bring.
Valia brings it up every day.
Sometimes she talks about the fact that Yana has seen more animals than her, and cries into Tali’s shoulder in fear that the strange animals will always like Yana the most. Sometimes she looks up at the sky and reaches for it, asking Jane to lift her up in hopes that she’ll be able to grab onto a cloud and hold it tight in an outstretched hand. Most days, though, she wanders into Garrus’s office and begs to go visit “the special park”, with tears welling up in her eyes when he’s forced to tell her no. It takes him two weeks of her off-and-on visits before he calls his partners together for a late night meeting, shortly after tucking their daughter into bed.
“I can’t take it any more,” he says. “I’ve researched every park on the planet, looking for a playground or exhibit that might match up with her descriptions. And even though I can’t find anything—”
“You’re a pushover, Garrus. You just hate telling her no.” But Tali’s voice is full of mirth and of love, and she links her fingers through his own as Jane opens her omnitool.
“I’ve tried reaching out to both Liara and Javik,” Jane admits. “But you both know how their work can take them out of communication range; I have no idea when they’ll be in touch next.”
“It breaks my heart, rejecting her over and over,” Garrus admits. Of all the promises he had made — to himself, to his partners, to his daughter — it is this one he holds the most dear: to lift her up instead of shutting her down, unlike his father had. He had never expected that a simple miscommunication would leave him feeling like he was failing, or like he was letting them all down. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but she’s too young to explain further and too young to understand why we don’t know what she wants.”
Jane rolls her shoulders back, stretches out the old stiffness that plagues her even now. “What I would give for a simple asari mind meld. Just once, so we could figure out where she’s asking us to take her.”
“She wouldn’t be able to tell us more than she already has.” Tali, ever the practical one, opens her omnitool and begins to scroll. “We need to ask Yana. And Yana—”
“—Stays with Aethyta while Liara and Javik are away. Tali, you’re a genius.”
Tali’s omnitool warbles as the call connects. “And don’t you two ever forget it.”
Aethyta laughs when she finally picks up the call and hears the family’s desperate, overwhelmed pleas.
“By the goddess, this girl has the three of you wrapped around her crest. I thought you were all big badass heroes.”
“Retired.”
“Former.”
“I’ll show you big bada—”
Aethyta chuckles loudly. “Easy there, Tali’Zorah. I don’t even need to wake Yana up to answer your question. Hell, I took her there myself — it’s a theme park on Ilium, rebuilt just after the end of the war. Eventually they say it’ll have attractions for adults too, but right now it’s mostly stuff for kids. Parades, stage shows, things like that.”
Garrus nods in wide-eyed understanding, but both Jane and Tali take a moment to blink at the omnitool in confusion. And Aethyta, a master in body language from her years behind the bar, picks up on it instantly. “I’ll go ahead and let you get going, since it looks like you’re gonna have to explain theme parks to these two, Garrus. They seem fairly perplexed by the idea.” And with a sharp grin and a raised middle finger, she disconnects, leaving the three of them to discuss one of the joys of growing up on a densely populated homeworld: spending an afternoon riding rides and eating junk food under the watchful eye of an eerie, anthropomorphic mascot.
The next morning, they wake up together to a chime from all of their omnitools: one day passes, courtesy of Aethyta, for the whole family.