Chapter Text
There was a reason the Council didn’t care who colonized Mindoir.
And that reason was sitting in a crate surrounded by three dead batarians. Saren frowned as he stepped over their bodies. The raid had started almost as soon as he’d stepped foot on the damn colony; apparently the batarians were still a little bitter about the humans ‘stealing’ Mindoir out from under them. Batarian pirates (which were in no way backed by the Hegemony, of course) had been performing small raids on various settlements ever since the humans set down roots.
He nudged one of the batarians with his foot. These, he hadn’t killed. They were dead when he arrived; yet the port seemed to be empty of humans. Saren had expected to see evidence of a fire fight at the very least. Instead there were gashes in each of their heads, as though someone had bludgeoned them with something. All of them. He frowned, kneeling to inspect them further. There were more gashes- on their legs.
Something fell near a group of crates. Saren straightened and pointed his gun towards the sound, narrowing his eyes.
“Come out with your hands up,” he growled.
The command was met with terse silence. Saren frowned and slowly began to walk forward. He heard shuffling behind one of the crates. Then, a small voice: “Go away!”
Saren lowered his gun slowly. The voice was distinctly childlike. Someone’s kid had apparently hidden there. He began to walk forward, if only to confirm his suspicions-
Suddenly a small figured burst forth from around one of the crates. Something connected with the back of his legs, causing him to fall to one knee. The weapon was raised over the child’s head, ready to strike down on the back of his head. Saren grabbed the child’s arm and flipped them on to their back. The weapon – a bloodied shovel – clattered to the ground. The kid screamed.
It was difficult for him to tell the age of a human, but he knew she was less than ten years old. Her skin was pale and covered in freckles. She had long, tangled red hair. Her clothes had dirt all down the front, and one of her knees was skinned. She was missing a shoe. And she was crying. He slowly relinquished his grip on her and picked up the shovel. The edges were covered in what seemed to be blood. Batarian blood.
The gashes on their legs, he thought. She must have done to them what she’d done to him; hit the legs, get them on their knees, and then hit the head till they stop moving. Crude, but effective. Saren looked towards the girl in surprise. “…you killed those batarians?”
She sat up and stared at him. She had the biggest, greenest eyes he’d ever seen. In those eyes Saren saw fear, confusion, sorrow, and-
Survival.
“I told them to go away,” the girl whispered. She stared at the bodies, apparently unmoved. “They wouldn’t go away. So I had to make them. I didn’t want to. I told them. I told them.”
Saren looked back towards the bodies. Three armed batarian pirates beaten to death by a human child. With a shovel. Had he not seen it for himself, he would not have believed it. He looked towards the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Jane,” she said. She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Jane Shepard.”
He stood and looked her over. His opinion of humans had only decreased the more he had seen of them. After Desolas- no, he would not think of that. Desolas was mad. And perhaps Saren had been too hard on this species. This would have been impressive for a turian child, who would have been trained to fight from the moment they could walk. Human children, as far as he knew, were given no special instruction until well into their adolescence. Odds were this girl was acting on pure instinct.
What was the saying?
Spectres are born, not made.
Saren hesitated, then held out his hand to Jane. “I’m Saren. I’m not here to hurt you.”
She looked at his hand, then met his eyes. She was skeptical. No doubt her parents had told her all about the evil, scary monsters that their people almost went to war with. But after a moment of consideration, Jane set her small little hand in his. He helped her to her feet.
“Are you here to stop the pirates?” Jane asked, once again staring at the dead bodies.
“No,” he admitted freely. “I’m here to protect that.” He nodded towards the crate.
Jane looked towards the crate. Then, after a moment, she looked up towards him. “What’s in it?”
“Classified,” he replied.
“What’s that mean?” Jane made a face of confusion. Of course; she was a human child living on a colony in the ass end of nowhere. Why did he expect her to have a vocabulary that was anywhere above mediocre?
“It means it’s a secret,” Saren said. He walked over towards the crate. After punching in the code, he opened it. The batarians hadn’t managed to get into it. All of the Prothean artifacts were still there. There would be more, of course; Mindoir, as it turned out, was a goldmine for Prothean technology. And the Council wanted it. Badly. As soon as he’d determined everything was still in its proper place, Saren shut and locked it once more. “How did you get out here, Jane?”
“I ran here,” Jane said. “My brother and I play hide-and-seek here when Daddy works. I knew I could hide here.”
He frowned, glancing over at her. “Where were you when the raid started?”
“The store,” Jane said. Ah, so she’d been at the main settlement when this mess started. It was quite the sprint from the shops to the port- he wondered how fast she’d managed it. Jane looked towards the bloody shovel. “Daddy said we needed a new tools for the planting season.” The little girl turned her eyes towards her feet. “Mommy said we’d get ice cream after.”
“Did the batarians come into the store?” Saren began scanning the perimeter, watching all of the doors. The last thing he wanted was for more batarians to show up. He didn’t think they would; they were more focused on killing and kidnapping. Batarians did love their slaves, after all.
Jane nodded slowly. “They started shooting. And I grabbed a shovel to fight with. And I ran. I tripped outside, and one almost got me. But he just got my shoe.” She held out her shoeless foot as evidence. The sock had been turned a dusty red by the Mindoirian soil.
Her family was most likely dead, then. Or worse. Saren had seen what batarians did to control their slaves. It wasn’t a fate he wished on anyone.
“So you ran here, hid…and those three batarians found you.” Yes, it was all becoming clear now. They wouldn’t have even thought to have drawn their guns. Why would they? She was just a child.
Jane nodded again.
Suddenly, the main door opened. Three humans stormed in, their guns drawn. When they saw Saren, however, they slowly lowered their weapons. They knew who he was, and they knew they didn’t want to mess with a Spectre.
“What happened here?” one of the humans asked.
He looked towards Jane. Her eyes widened fearfully. After a moment he realized she was afraid to tell them that she’d killed the batarians. Perhaps she thought she would get in trouble; she was obviously old enough to know what she’d done. It was an unfounded fear, but she was a child. And there was no time to explain the concept of self-defense. So he looked towards the humans and said, “I found these three threatening the little one. I took care of it.”
Jane rushed towards him and wrapped her arms around his legs in a tight hug. It took Saren by surprise, as well as the humans. To them, perhaps, it was gratitude for ‘rescuing’ her. To him, however, it was something else. It could be a sudden show of trust, or even a thank you for lying for her. Or this little girl was playing into the story to defend her own innocence. Either way, Saren found himself smiling.
*
Once the shipment was safely off Mindoir, Saren made his way back to the main settlement. The humans had taken Jane to go find her family- a fruitless endeavor, but he knew better than to say so.
The town was beginning to pick up the pieces when he arrived at the square. There were bodies lined up and covered with sheets, tarps, whatever they could find. Store windows were smashed. Thermal clips lay on the ground. Human families clustered together and cried. Others ran through the crowd, shouting names, trying to find their loved ones.
In the midst of all the chaos, Jane sat there in silence. She’d found a quiet spot in front of a store and had taken to sitting in the doorway. Her green eyes scanned the crowd resolutely, as though she already knew she would not find what she was looking for.
Saren walked over and sat down beside her. “Did you find your family?”
Jane pointed wordlessly towards the bodies lining the square.
“Ah.” He’d expected as much. And from the look on her face, he knew she did too. Saren got to his feet again. “Stay here.”
She only nodded.
It took him almost an hour to find someone willing to talk to him. And it took another thirty minutes after that to find someone that could tell him what would happen to Jane. Finally he was directed to the settlement’s mayor, a woman that the others all referred to as Asha.
Asha regarded him with skepticism as he approached. “What is it? We have a lot to deal with as it is, if you can’t tell.”
“I noticed,” Saren replied. He nodded his head towards Jane. She had remained in the doorway of the shop, just as she was told. “What’s going to happen to her? Her family was killed in the attack.”
Asha looked towards Jane, and her expression softened. “Shit…I didn’t know the Shepards didn’t make it.” She paused. “What about her brother? She had a twin-”
“Gone, I believe,” Saren said.
The mayor sighed and crossed her arms. “Damned batarians- they just turned seven. They killed a fucking child…”
He was beginning to lose his patience. “What will happen to her?”
“I don’t know, ok? I don’t think Hannah or Alexei had any family. She’ll probably be sent to an orphanage on Earth somewhere,” Asha said. She glanced over at the little girl forlornly. “It’d be better for her to get off this planet.”
An orphanage. He’d heard of such places. They were an alien concept to turians. Historically, if a child was orphaned, they would be raised by their clan. Clans were expected to take in these children, no matter how distantly related they might be. There were many things to be said about his people. They were militaristic and difficult to please. But they did not abandon their young. Why humans seemed so eager to toss their own children aside and forget about them was beyond him.
He looked towards Jane. All that potential, wasted. Unless…
“In an orphanage she’d be up for adoption, correct?” Saren asked, still looking towards Jane.
“I guess-”
“Perfect.”
*
Unsurprisingly, Saren met a great deal of resistance from the human government when he attempted to adopt Jane. But he was prepared for this. The story was passed on to an up-and-coming asari journalist, who blasted it all over the newsfeeds. Saren only had to watch as the media circus unfolded.
The humans were insulted; many felt as though the galactic community was trying to tell them how to conduct their own business. Others said letting a turian adopt a human child would guarantee future abuse or mistreatment. They weren’t the only ones angry about it, however. When he went to the turian Registry to inform them of the possible adoption, they refused to add a human’s name to the records for clan Arterius. The phrases ‘corrupting the bloodline’ and ‘defaming your clan’s name’ were tossed at him quite often.
Others cried racism. Saren, they said, had done nothing to show he would be an unfit parent. He was financially stable, a Spectre, and an esteemed soldier in the turian Hierarchy. There was very little for anyone to criticize other than his species. Round and round the debate went for months on end.
Finally, after a year of arguing, media coverage, and heated debates, Saren signed on the dotted line. Little Jane Shepard became Jane Arterius, the first human to ever be adopted by a turian.
He waited for her at the docks of the Citadel. Throughout all of this chaos, he had not been permitted to see her. But as soon as she came into view – bag slung over her shoulder, holding her social worker’s hand – she smiled. She dropped her luggage and ran straight to him. Her small arms wrapped around his legs in a tight hug. Saren smiled slightly and set his hand on the top of her head. He was pleased her reaction was so…positive. Part of him hadn’t even expected her to remember who he was.
The reporters that had turned up to cover the momentous event began to snap pictures. Jane glanced at them and frowned. She looked up at Saren. “Can we go home now?”
Saren nodded. He took her bag from her social worker. And, together, they set off for his apartment.