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The stars above him were going by in a blur. The Normandy was moving fast through space, fuel an insignificant expense as far as Cerberus was concerned. The Illusive Man wanted quick action, and Aaron Shepard was happy to provide.

But not tonight. Tonight he was glad to be sitting here on the couch in his quarters, feet in his old scuffed boots stretched out on the table in front of him, glass of fine Earth-made bourbon in hand, head tilted back, looking up at the stars.

It was almost like those meltingly hot summer nights in Tulsa when he was a kid, lying on the roof of the abandoned building he lived in with a score of other kids, outcasts and orphans just like him. They'd go up to the roof for any possible hint of coolness, a little breeze, any relief from the muggy Oklahoma summer, and they'd lie there and look up at the stars. They'd pretend that they were going to go there someday, but deep down, none of them really believed anyone actually lived up there, or flew amongst the stars in smooth, sleek ships. Just like none of them really believed they'd ever had parents, or a home of their own. Nearly all the group was made up of street kids who had little to no memory of being anything else.

Shepard took a swallow of the bourbon, holding it in his mouth and then letting it slide down his throat, burning as it went but carrying a glow of warmth after it. Why was he thinking about Tulsa tonight? He hadn't given any consideration to those long-ago days in years.

It must have been the krogan. What a burst of adrenaline that had been, facing down a newly-hatched krogan, full-grown and mindless with rage. He'd let himself be pushed up against the wall, but when it seemed the krogan wouldn't back off, Shepard had shot him through the stomach. He'd regenerated, of course, and with a hell of a lot more respect than he'd had before. Yes, Shepard thought the decision to awaken the krogan would turn out well in the long run. And then, to have it name itself Grunt … well, that was the irony, wasn't it? Because Shepard might as well have been tank-bred, and his first name had been Grunt—the only one he'd had for as long as he could remember.

They were all called Grunt, the little ones. Because Eno, the loud-mouthed older kid who led the gang, didn't want to bother learning their names, and because he was obsessed with old war vids from the 20th century. That was half the reason they had electricity in the building, thieving and scrapping and diving in dumpsters for credits or anything they could sell for credits in order to keep the lights on and the movies running. Eno said half the grunts died or disappeared anyway, so what was the point of them having names?

The little Grunt with the black hair and the always-serious face listened to Eno, and he watched the vids, and he believed everything he was told. He didn't know any better—he'd been in this gang for as long as he could remember. He was one of the lucky ones: fast enough to outrun the police officers who tried to pick them up, sharp-eyed enough to stay out of danger, and too intimidated by adults to get in cars with the smiling, pretty-smelling women and well-dressed jocular men who occasionally enticed others of the smaller children away. Eno said they did terrible things to the grunts they took, and little Grunt believed him. Some of the other older children said those fancy people took the little ones home and gave them soft beds and good meals … but few of the older children stayed for long. Eno was too jealous of his authority (and, in retrospect, too soft to really put up a good fight) to allow any potential rivals to remain in the gang.

The next oldest right now was a girl named Rachel, who insisted on being called by her name. She was a sassy one, with red hair she wore in neat, careful braids. Unlike most of the others, Rachel had a parent still living—her father was a spacer, on a long-term assignment with the Alliance. She laughed at the others when they said it was a lie, and her father was really in jail. She believed he was coming back for her someday, and for that, the others laughed at her.

Little Grunt didn't laugh at her … then again, he never laughed at anything. The business of staying alive was too important to laugh. But he didn't believe her, either. Not until one day when she caught him loitering around outside the public library. It was a good place to go, because people so often came out distracted, staring at the screens in their hands, or the bound bundles of paper they carried, that they were easy to pickpocket.

"Hey. Grunt. What are you doing here?"

"Hey, Rachel. What's it look like I'm doing?"

She glared at him. "You can't steal from people at a library!"

He frowned. "Why not? Is it someone else's space?"

"No, because it's a library. Books, Grunt, they're important." She took one of the bound bundles out of the beaten-up satchel she carried and showed it to him, opening it up. He looked at the little black marks, marching in rows across the page, and shook his head. Rachel's eyes widened. They were pretty eyes, blue with flecks of green. "You can't read?"

He shook his head.

"Well … of course you can't. Here, come on." She led him toward the steps, but he hung back. The librarians had never let him in—probably they knew what he had come for. He looked like he had come to steal things, with his old dirty clothes, his unkempt, unwashed hair. Grunt could see the differences between himself and other people … but until now, he had never noticed the differences between himself and Rachel. She wore her hair braided, but he had thought that was to keep bugs out of it. Now he could see that her skin was clean, and she smelled good, and her clothes were old and threadbare, but they were clean, too. She swept into the library like she went there all the time. From the smile on the librarian's face, she must. And coming in under Rachel's protection meant that Grunt was allowed in, too. He filed that away for future reference—that and the awareness that being clean allowed you into places that otherwise would kick you out. Rachel said, "I'm going to show you something, but you have to stay very quiet until it's over, all right? Then we'll get something to eat."

That promise bought his obedience. Food was their currency, and he'd turned all his over to Eno last night. He sat in a chair while Rachel took a seat in front of a console and tapped on the keys. "I have an extranet account," she said to him over her shoulder. "So I can talk to my dad."

"If your dad is in space, why didn't he take you?" Grunt asked. He'd always wanted to know, but hadn't felt like it was okay to ask. Rachel was so self-assured, she made him feel shy. One of the few who could, really … or at least, one of the few who made him feel so shy he couldn't mask it under a pretense of confidence.

"He can't. No kids allowed on an Alliance vessel. And my mom didn't die until he was too far out on the mission to come back. He feels bad about it, but what can he do? He doesn't have any way to come home now."

"So he could be in jail, for all you know."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "You're too smart for that, Grunt." She frowned. "What is your real name, anyway?"

"Grunt."

"No, I mean, what your parents called you."

He shook his head uncomfortably. He couldn't remember parents, or a name other than the one he had.

Rachel looked at him, her eyes soft, but also sharp, like she felt sad but she was thinking hard about something at the same time. Then the console beeped and she turned to the screen, smiling, Grunt forgotten for the moment.

For half an hour, he sat there in the hard library chair, increasingly uncomfortable, watching Rachel vid chat with her father. She looked so happy, her eyes shining and a smile on her face, swinging her legs and talking a mile a minute—but everything she said was a lie. About an aunt, and school, and some boy on the school bus. Eventually, Grunt got bored and he got up to go look at the long rows of bound bundles, running his fingers along them. The paper felt good under his hands, smooth and clean. He took one out and started looking through it, but the black figures marched along just as they had in the one Rachel showed him, and they didn't make any sense.

A hand came down on his shoulder, hard, and he looked up at the librarian who had smiled at Rachel. She wasn't smiling now.

"You have to leave. You can't stay here."

He didn't know what to say. He didn't want to say anything. Talking to this person gave her power, it gave her authority. Instead he just stood there, silent, waiting to see what she would do.

But she didn't do anything, because Rachel was there. "He's with me," she told the librarian.

The librarian looked at Rachel, and then at Grunt, and then back at Rachel. "I've never seen him in here with you before."

"He's my … cousin, recently come to stay with us. His family was homeless for a while before we convinced them to come here, and … well, you know how boys are. He kind of got to like being all dirty and smelly." Rachel wrinkled her nose up, but she was smiling, and the librarian was smiling again, too.

"See if you can get him to clean up some if you bring him back. And keep him in the children's section. I'm sure Steinbeck is too advanced for him." She plucked the bundle out of his hands and put it back on the shelf.

"Of course, ma'am. Come along," Rachel said to Grunt. As soon as they were out of earshot, she hissed at him, "I told you to stay put!"

"I was bored." He looked at her curiously. "Why did you tell your father so many lies?"

Rachel squirmed a little. "Oh. That. He thinks I'm living with my mom's sister."

"But you're not."

"No. That bitch wanted me to be her slave—cook and clean while she sat around with her boyfriend. I'd rather be on my own. Besides, that way I can bank the money my dad sends and use it in emergencies." She stopped and looked Grunt over. "Like this one."

"What?" He didn't like the way she was looking at him.

"I think I will make you my cousin."

"We don't look anything alike."

Rachel looked him over. "Well … yeah, but that's because I'm about as Irish as you can be these days, and you're a bit of a mutt, aren't you? But those eyes of yours, such a bright blue? Those could be Irish. Besides, people who are related look different from each other all the time."

"But we're not related."

"Maybe not, but you need someone to take care of you."

"I do not!"

"Keep your voice down. Look, do you want to be on the streets all your life, live like Eno, all fat and lazy watching vids all day, or do you want a better life?"

Grunt frowned. Eno was just a kid, like them. He said as much, and Rachel laughed.

"He's at least 25. He seems like a kid because he lives like a kid, and because it makes it easier to control all of you."

"Huh." He digested that information, which made sense now that she said it.

"How old are you, Grunt?"

"I don't know."

Rachel nodded, as if she had figured as much. "I think you're about eight, what do you think?"

"Sure." What did it matter? He had never thought about how old he was because it didn't matter; today's meal, tonight's sleep, the credits and goods Eno required, those mattered.

"And your name. Do you want to keep being called Grunt, just like all the other grunts?"

He'd never given it much thought. "I guess?"

"Wrong answer. Grunts disappear because no one can tell them apart. And because they don't matter to anyone. But you matter to me, and I want to be able to call you by a real name. Are there any names you like?"

He shook his head. He didn't really know a lot of names. "You could call me Rachel," he ventured.

She didn't laugh at him, but he could tell she kind of wanted to. "Rachel's a girl's name. Also, it's my name. You need your own. Come on." She led him through the stacks of bound bundles. "Anything you ever want to know, you can find out in a library, but you have to be able to read. I'm going to teach you to read."

"Why?"

"Because knowledge matters," she said. "You have to know things if you're going to get anywhere. I've been watching you—you're smart, and you can think for yourself, and you're going to get on Eno's bad side one of these days because he doesn't like smart kids."

"Why aren't you on his bad side, then?"

"Because I don't care. I use his group as a place to crash and because there's protection in groups. But I don't want to take over, and I follow his orders, and I don't make waves. You're going to make waves, eventually, because you're going to figure out how he takes advantage of all of you, and then you're going to disappear, and I think you're too smart and capable to let that happen to you." She looked down, then, at the tips of her worn-out boots. "And maybe … maybe because I miss having a family. So … I'm asking you, Grunt. Will you let me give you a name, and teach you to read, and be … kind of my family?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what would happen when her father came back. But he didn't care. She was offering him opportunities he wouldn't have otherwise and the chance to be something more, and even though he had never thought much about it before—well, he had survived this long by knowing a good thing when it was standing right in front of him.

"Okay."

"Your enthusiasm bowls me over, kid." At his blank look, she chuckled. "We'll work on sarcasm, too. Ah, here we are." She reached down a book and flipped to the back. "Boys' names, boys' names … Let's see. Oh, this is a good one. The very first one—seems like a sign. Aaron." She looked at him over the top of the book. "What do you think? Does Aaron sound like someone you want to be?"

It had been. It still was. If it hadn't been for Rachel, he'd have died long ago, and someone else would be captaining the Normandy against the Collectors. Well, if he died now, trying to save the galaxy, that was a lot better than dying as a kid on the street because some over-grown teenager was threatened by him.

Aaron took another long swallow of the bourbon. When they got to the Omega 4, he should remember to send Rachel a vid message to say good-bye, and to thank her for everything she'd done for him. He still had no idea what she had seen in a filthy, uneducated street rat with no name and no family, but he'd worked his ass off in the years since to be worthy of the gift she'd given him—his own name, and with it, an entire future.