One of my favourite things about my canon Shepard is her first-name, and how much it suits the colour of her eyes. In every screenshot I take of my Shepard, whether she's wearing a helmet or in red lights of the gun battery, her eyes always stand out. I couldn't resist the urge to write about how Shepard got her name.
I intitally named this one-shot "Shepard had a little lamb," but didn't think the title was really suitable, ha... *sigh*
Add: Thanks for the pick-up on my little name initial typo! How embarrassing, I had the idea and then forgot to go back and change it... Whoops.
Rachel Samantha Shepard. A good, sensible name. A name any girl would not be ashamed of. Meaning, according to the file of baby names John had thoughtfully downloaded onto her omni-tool, "of beautiful of form and countenance." A name, Hannah noted to herself with a smirk, symbolized everything she herself was not. That made it perfect.
A stark contrast to Sissy Jamila, the ridiculous name Chabner from engineering had given her daughter when she had arrived last month. Poor thing Hannah snorted, cradling her swollen stomach with her free hand as she maneuvered herself and a cumbersome IV pole around the gurney in the medbay to get to the window. Princess is going to cop it when she starts getting schooled.
No way was she going to give her baby, a strong little girl who kicked her insides from dawn to dusk and every unearthly hour in between (and who had seemingly given the sonographer a rather rude gesture with one of her tiny hands during Hannah's latest ultrasound), a name that would make her the joke of the classroom and schoolyard. Or in this baby's case, the home-school room and cargo bay of whatever ship Hannah and John would be serving on at the time. Children could be cruel.
Yep. She was not going to have any of this fancy name crap for her daughter.
The lieutenant had spent a lot of time laboring over the perfect name to bestow upon her little lamb. Placed on maternity leave and restricted to bed rest for the remaining two months of her pregnancy by the ship's medical officer after a bout of exhaustion had caused her to topple over head-first in the combat information center, Hannah had spent many hours scouring lists of baby names whilst John was on duty. There wasn't much to do whilst hibernating in her husband's quarters aboard his assigned ship, a special privilege granted to the couple by Alliance Command so that the commanding officer could be present for his daughter's birth while he completed the remaining months of his tour. Whenever she suggested names to John, he would just click his tongue and shrug his shoulders, suggesting that perhaps they should wait until Hannah had "popped the baby out" and saw her personality before making a decision.
Ah, no thank you. Hannah thrived on planning and organisation. Given her unexpected- although not unwanted- pregnancy (where she spent the first three months practically making out with a toilet bowl), it was all she could do to sate her obsessive-compulsive tendencies and ensure that she was prepared for the arrival of a little human, whilst having the hassle of choosing a name done and dusted.
Hannah rested her forehead against the cold surface of the medbay window and exhaled deeply, making the most of a pain-free moment to collect her nerves. The medbay window, usually sealed during travel to maintain hull integrity, boasted a spectacular view of the Earth's atmosphere below the orbiting ship. Shades of bright green lights danced in waves in the atmosphere above the Earth's North Pole. The Aurora Borealis, John had informed her. She had initially been struck speechless by this miracle of nature, a sight she had first beheld from their cabin window upon arrival onto the SSV Jarvis.
Watching the lights dance below her now had a calming effect on Hannah's birthing jitters. She marveled at the thought that the collision of energetic charged particles in the thermosphere could create such a breathtaking phenomenon.
Hannah's stomach contracted and she doubled over, clutching the IV pole for support as she rode out the wave of pain. It was only a matter of time now. Her little one was intent on wedging all four kilos of her tiny self down and out of Hannah's frame with a pace that surprised Karin, the ship's medical officer. The doctor had expressed her surprise at the speed of Hannah's labour, given that it was her first pregnancy, and had parked herself at her station in the medbay to monitor Hannah's labour.
As the contractions increased in intensity and duration and the urge to bear down began to overwhelm Hannah, she waddled over to her gurney and struggled to lay herself down, feeling like a beached whale. An over-sized, swollen, exhausted beached whale. Karin stood up from her station and strode over to Hannah's gurney, positioning her omni-tool over Hannah's stomach to monitor the contractions. Hannah tried to distract herself from the pain of a bulldozer doing wheelies in her gut and the uncomfortable sensation of Karin checking the dilation of her cervix with thoughts of the severely-lacking baby nursery she had set up in the corner of John's cabin. The disadvantages of life as a military family aboard a space-faring vessel unfortunately meant that their baby would have to adjust to a life of little privacy and little sense of home, given that John and Hannah had no intention of retiring from the Alliance anytime soon. She would have to make improvements, she thought to herself as she gritted her teeth. Make it seem more homely. Hannah was adamant that her baby would be nurtured properly given the nature of their unconventional environment.
Another contraction took hold of her body, making her grip the bed sheets so hard that her fists turned white. Hannah knew when Karin pronounced her fully dilated and settled herself on a stool at the end of her gurney where her legs were suspended on stir-ups, that it was time to bring her little one into the world. She totally had this under control. She had spent hours memorizing books on what to expect during labour, and she had followed her birth plan to a tee (an extensive eight-page birth plan, in very small font).
Hannah barely noticed John flying through the medbay doors to seat himself at her side, jittery with excitement, his hands just asking to be crushed underneath her grip. Time seemed to speed up as she gripped her husband's hand and screamed murder at him for ever having the audacity to come close enough to her to get her pregnant. Hannah could hear the doctor urging her along in her soothing British accent amongst her own blood-curdling screams to breathe and push before she felt the pressure release as her baby left the safety of her body, the piercing sound of crying flooding the medbay.
Hannah fell back onto her pillows, gasping for air as Karin swiftly and expertly clipped the umbilical cord and wrapped the baby, a screaming red infant with a shock of black hair adorning her little head in clean toweling. John laughed in relief and pressed a kiss to Hannah's forehead, brushing back her sweat-clad fringe, his face as flushed as hers in happiness. "You have a beautiful healthy girl," Karin announced to the exuberant pair before placing the baby on a trolley beside the bed to give the infant a quick assessment.
Silence filled the medbay as Hannah caught her breath, watching Karin quickly suction fluid from the baby's nostrils before checking her reflexes. From her gurney, Hannah had a clear view of the infant, her little face furiously scrunched up at the audacity of this big giant who had yanked her from her comfortable haven. She kicked at the doctor's fingers as Karin brushed the bottom of her little pink feet. As Karin moved to check the baby's grasp reflex, the little tyke gripped the doctor's fingers so hard that she was able to support herself enough to suspend for a brief moment in the air, screaming furiously all the while. Definitely the daughter of Alliance marines, Hannah thought to herself proudly.
Karin swaddled up the infant and brought her over to her eagerly waiting parents.
"Rachel," Hannah whispered, unconsciously stretching out her arms to receive her baby.
Karin gently placed the baby in Hannah's arms. "Congratulations, Captain Shepard, Lieutenant Shepard," she smiled before settling herself back at the end of the bed and adorning a fresh set of gloves.
Hannah and John peered down at their swathed and suddenly silent baby girl, oblivious to the doctor's post-birth administrations. Hannah felt an indescribable rush of emotion as she cradled her newborn daughter, finally free from her body. Two startling green eyes blinked inquisitively up at them both as if struggling to focus on their faces- a shade of green so much brighter and deeper than John's pale green irises. She had never seen such a color in the eyes of a human before. The baby's eyes immediately hooked her soul.
Hannah ran her fingers down her baby's plump red cheeks in awe of the little creature she and John had created, gently brushing her fingers over the little girl's long lashes as her husband making cooing noises beside her. "Rachel doesn't fit," she muttered to herself as her daughter wrapped her tiny fist around her finger.
John looked up at Hannah after bending down to place a kiss on his newborn daughter's forehead, his eyes damp from welling tears that threatened to spill. "What do you mean?"
"Rachel. I had the perfect name all planned out. But just look at her. She's not a Rachel. It doesn't fit."
John tenderly brushed his fingers against the baby's damp hair, the exact shade of the jet-black tresses adorning her mother's head. "Oh Hannah, I told you to wait until she was born before deciding."
Hannah felt a moment of panic as she held her little miracle, her obsessive-compulsive tendencies surfacing as she realized the name she had spent weeks deliberating upon just didn't fit her newborn. She looked around the medbay and took a deep steadying breath, her eyes coming to rest on the view of the Earth's atmosphere outside the window. The bright green Aurora Borealis lights continued to dance below them, as if in celebration of their baby's arrival.
She gasped. It was perfect.
"Aurora," Hannah breathed. "Her name is Aurora."
The baby squirmed in her swaddling, her plump red mouth opening wide as she yawned.
John followed Hannah's gaze out of the medbay window to rest on the dancing Aurora lights, the bright green of the phenomenon reflecting in his pale green eyes, and immediately understood. "Aurora is perfect," he smiled.
"Aurora Samantha Shepard," Hannah smiled, resting her head tenderly against John's as she marveled at her baby. It amazed her that the little girl could be so perfect.
"Let's hope she doesn't join the Alliance when she's older," John smirked. "Imagine her signing off on mission reports. A.S.S. Ha!"
Hannah snorted and punched John with her free hand, jostling the infant. He sighed and leaned forward to press a kiss to her lips. "Thank you, Hannah."
Aurora screwed up her eyes in protest to her smooching parents and opened her mouth, letting out a piercing wail. At the end of the bed, Karin smiled and pushed the birthing trolley to disappear out of view, giving the new little family a private moment to bond.
"Well, now we know why she arrived so fast," John joked as Hannah fumbled with her birthing gown and placed her baby at her breast. Aurora latched on greedily. "Look at the little tyke go. She was starving."