AN-I'm keeping the K+ rating, but there's a little mild language in this chapter.

"How's she doing?" Garrus asked, peeking in the door. He'd just come back from a run to the store to pick up some medication for Maya, who had the flu. According to Shepard, it wasn't serious (although it looked pretty serious from Garrus' perspective) but their daughter had been having a rough day, to put it mildly.

"Her fever's up to 102 and she can't keep anything down." Shepard started to take the bag of meds, but Garrus shook his head.

"You've been up all night."

"So have you."

"I don't need as much sleep as you do." She started to protest, but it was cut off by a yawn and she glared at him like it was his fault her body chose that moment to reveal just how tired she was. "Go get some rest, I promise I'll wake you if she gets any worse."

"It's okay, mom, go to sleep," Maya croaked from the darkness of her room and Garrus raised his browplate as if to say See? Told you. Shepard nodded, told Maya goodnight, gave him a list of instructions that basically boiled down to Don't burn the house down and reluctantly padded off to the bathroom. Garrus entered the room and sat on the bed next to his daughter, rubbing circles on her back.

"Hey, kiddo, how're you holding up?"

"I feel like shi—crap." She cracked an eyelid and looked up at him exhaustedly, but she still had the grace to be embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Hey, you're almost sixteen. It's not like I thought you didn't know that word." It was just one more sign that his little girl was growing up, though. "Come on, sit up. I've got something for you." She hauled herself upright and leaned on his shoulder, groaning. Between the fever, the headaches, generally feeling like hot garbage, and not having eaten anything more exciting than crackers and apple juice for the past sixteen hours, the poor kid was having a hard time holding her head up straight.

He held the little dosage cup up to the light filtering in from the hall and measured out the purple liquid that promised a little relief, and handed it to Maya. She sat there staring at it for a second, and he recognized that look on her face just in time to hand her the bucket that had been parked beside her all night. Garrus held her hair and rubbed her back until she was done, then took the bucket back.

"Sorry, dad. This can't be fun for you."

"There's nowhere else I'd rather be." She gave him a look, that look patented by teenagers all over the universe that said, You're so full of crap your eyes are turning brown. "No, really."

"You'd rather be here watching me puke than be on, say, a sandy beach somewhere?" She took her medicine and washed it down with the glass of water on her nightstand. "Ugh, that stuff tastes like varren snot."

"I really have to stop leaving you and your mother alone together if she's gonna teach you to talk like that." Maya chuckled weakly and didn't resist at all when Garrus had her lay back down. He brushed a few stray locks of sweaty hair from her forehead and wiped her hot skin with a wet washcloth. Hopefully the medication would help her sleep and break the fever that was burning her up.

Her eyes were closed and she was half out of it when she said, "You didn't answer me."

Garrus sighed and straightened her blankets while he thought about what he was going to say. "Even if you were throwing up on me, I'd still want to be here until you felt better. I'm your father, Maya, and I love you."

She was quiet and he would have thought she'd fallen asleep but for the frown that creased her forehead. When she opened her eyes, he saw them shimmering with tears. "Dad, I wanted to ask you . . ."

"Yeah?"

"Well, last time I checked, I don't have any turian DNA." She blinked, and the tears rolled down her face. "I know this isn't the best time to ask, but I'm just loopy enough to finally get this out, I think."

Garrus could tell where this was going. It was a conversation he'd hoped to avoid all together, but had been preparing for ever since they'd first talked about this when she was four.

"Do you know who . . . um . . . donated the sperm that you guys used to make me?"

He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently. "Your mom and I didn't ask, because it didn't matter at the time. You were going to be ours, and whoever happened to provide the other half of your DNA wasn't going to be in the picture. I think there are still records of it, though, if you really want to know." Maya looked like she wanted to take it all back, and Garrus wondered how much of what he was feeling was showing on his face right now. "You don't have to decide right away. Think about it, and let me know what you want to do."

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," she said, and her voice was thick with tears. The flu was making her more emotional than usual. Garrus leaned down to hug her and her smooth arms wrapped around his neck, just like they had when she was small, and he held her close, remembering the girl she was and so, so proud of the woman she was becoming, even if it meant she was slowly slipping away into adulthood.

"You didn't, baby, don't worry about that. If this is something you want, I'll help you, no matter what, okay?"

"Okay." She sniffled and let him go, and laughed a little. "Sorry, I got you all wet."

"Like I said, no place I'd rather be." He got up to leave so she could sleep and heard her call him just before the door closed.

"I love you, daddy."

He smiled at her and said, "Love you too, kiddo. Now get some sleep."

"'Kay."

Later on that morning, once he'd double-checked the time difference, he called his father, ostensibly just to talk. He'd started asking after his mother and sister, but within a few minutes, the elder Vakarian figured out that there was something else on Garrus' mind. As much as he'd feared what his father would think of having a human granddaughter, Pelenaeus had only ever treated Maya as family. Adding her to the family had softened his attitude toward Shepard as well, whom he had never really forgiven for dragging his son off on multiple suicide missions, regardless of the outcome.

"So, are you going to tell me why you really called, or do I need to brow-beat it out of you?" That was Pelenaeus all over, gruff and to-the-point.

He sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter in the pre-dawn dark. "Maya's asking about her real father."

"What the hell are you talking about? You're her real father."

"I mean the sperm donor. She's talking about wanting to find out about him."

"That's just natural curiosity," he scoffed. Garrus could practically hear him waving the whole thing off. "You were there for her all her life. You raised her, and did a damned good job of it, too. Let her figure it out, and don't worry about it."

"I know, it's just . . . hard to hear, is all." He gripped the counter and shook his head. "It's stupid to worry about this, but I can't help it. What if she wants to meet him? What then?"

"Then you figure out how to do that, Garrus. You reach down into your guts and do it for your daughter, because that's what she needs you to do." He was quiet for a beat, then asked, "Do you want me to talk to her?"

"Not yet, I don't want her to think I'm bothered by this. She's worried about hurting me."

"That's a good kid you've got there, son."

Garrus smiled in spite of himself. "Don't I know it. Thanks, dad. That . . . it means a lot to hear you say that."

"Don't worry about this too much. You're her real father, and she knows it."

"Yeah. I'll talk to you again soon."

"Looking forward to it." He hung up without saying goodbye, something the both of them picked up in C-Sec, another lifetime ago. After one last check through the house to make sure everything was locked up, he went to bed. Shepard hummed in her sleep when he slid in beside her and she pulled his arm around her before drifting off again. It took only a little while longer for him to fall into a troubled sleep.

He didn't wake up until early afternoon, and he stumbled out into the living room in just a pair of pants to the sound of the television and the coffee maker running. "Hey, dad," Maya said from the couch. "I heard you get up so I started your kava for you."

"Thanks, hon. Feeling better?"

"Yeah, my fever broke last night. I'm back down to 99 degrees."

"Glad to hear it." He poured a steaming cup for himself and blew on it while the last of his grogginess shuffled off his shoulders, and sat down beside her. She leaned against him and let him kiss her hair, and he thought he smelled the blue paint he used on his markings. He tilted her head up and saw that she had donned the Vakarian clan tattoos this morning, something she hadn't done in a while. She smiled shyly and tried to shrug it off.

"It just seemed like a good day to put them on again, you know?"

Garrus wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "Yeah."

After a long minute, she said, "Hey dad, about what I said last night . . . I think I changed my mind."

"You sure?"

"Mmm-hmm. You were right, that other guy doesn't matter. He might have contributed to my genes, but he's not my dad. That dubious honor goes to you." She grinned up at him and saw his wife as she'd been when he'd first met her all those years ago in his daughter's face. It was enough to put a lump in his throat and he mussed her hair to get her laughing. "Daa-aad!" she complained, ducking out from under his hand. "Now you have to fix it."

"You want me to braid it for you?"

"Yeah, okay." She turned around so her back was to him and handed him a hairbrush from the coffee table. "You know, the other kids at school don't believe me when I tell them you've been doing my hair for me since I was in preschool."

"Maybe you should make a video or something."

"Big bad turian bad-ass—uh, bad-boy—like you? Your reputation would never survive."

"I'm going to have to talk to your mother about your language, young lady."

"Hey, you say worse in the car when she drives."

Garrus shuddered in mock-horror and she laughed. "Don't remind me." He wondered how much longer she'd let him do this. After all, she'd be going to college before they knew it, making new friends, getting a job, buying a house, building a future. It made him more nostalgic than usual, and when he was finished with her hair she turned and smiled at him, and for a moment she was six years old again. She immediately shot off the couch to go look at herself, just as she'd always done when she was small and needed to stand on the toilet to see in the mirror, and he was left sitting on the couch, thinking back on what his father had said and knew it to be true.

He laughed out loud and Maya leaned out into the hallway to see what was going on, then rolled her eyes at her crazy father. He probably wouldn't have been able to explain what was so funny anyway; that after all these years of contention, he'd finally agreed with his dad about something.