Quick one-shot that came to me while I was lurking Deviantart. I own nothing, if I did the endings would be better and Miranda would be romanceable by females. Anyways! Onward. Also, Chuck reference thrown in for good measure.
"You can go back in now, Commander." A soft voice rocked Shepard out of her slight daze as she stood from her spot in the waiting room and nodded. She'd been in the room the entire time but when the 'clean up' process began she politely excused herself with the reasoning of a call she had to make. Of all the unspeakable things she'd seen in the past, this was what rocked her. This was what she couldn't see. Nope. No way in hell she would've been able to keep herself standing, though she knew she'd be mocked until the end of days for this.
Hearing the door close behind her with a quiet hiss, Dianna turned to look at it before turning her attention to the bed in the center of the room. An easy smile made it's way across her face as she moved to cross and stand where she'd been prior to leaving. A hand reached out for hers and as they clasped she leaned down and pushed a curtain of dark hair away to press a kiss to a slightly clammy forehead.
"Hey, gorgeous." She breathed quietly as she pulled away, quirking a smile with a gentle squeeze of the hand in hers. With a quick shift she was seated against the edge of the bed, eyes still focused on the woman laying beside her.
"Far from gorgeous right now, but the sentiment has been noted." Miranda laughed tiredly, shaking her head as her free hand came up and pushed her unruly hair away from her face once more. After a few moments of battling the waves she huffed and gave up, allowing them to fall where they would, earning a chuckle from the seated brunette; which just earned a glare.
Di simply grinned, reaching over to tuck the hair behind the dark haired woman's ear. "Another impossible mission completed by Commander Shepard. The universe will thank me." This earned her a slap that even her reflexes couldn't stop, though the power behind it was lacking completely. She understood though. All of her missions combined couldn't amount to what Miranda had just gone through, so she understood the slight weakness. "Before you hit me again, let me just add. You're always gorgeous to me…especially now." The humor in her voice was gone, replaced with a quiet tone that ended with a soft smile.
This seemed to calm the former Cerberus loyalist as she laid back against the pillow and smiled. "Smooth talker."
Their brief moment was cut short by the opening of the door once more, a nurse stepping in with a bundle swathed in blankets. "Good evening, ladies. I do believe you have a visitor."
Dianna felt the shuffling beside her, moving to stand from the bed as Miranda sat up completely and readily accepted the bundle as carefully as humanly possible. The quiet gasp reverberated around the room and caught a breath in the Commander's throat as she watched the scene in front of her unfold. Her arms came across her chest as a grin blasted across her face, teetering forward on her toes to get a better look at the bundle.
Dark cerulean eyes looked back at her, a pair that shockingly mixed her greys with Miranda's blues in a way that had her heart all but stopping. A tuft of dark hair poked it's way out from under the blanket, framing the face staring at them perfectly. Dianna reached out, gently dancing her fingers over the exposed cheek of her daughter. Her daughter. It was as though the words had gotten jumbled in her translator because in all honesty, she still couldn't believe it.
It'd taken them years to get to this point. Years after the invasion and subsequent end of the Reapers were spent trying to conceive this child. Dianna's body had been rendered useless when it came to this, years of abuse taken from bullets, rockets, punches to the gut. She'd known the day would come when a doctor told her it was to be impossible and she had accepted it. But Miranda…she wouldn't take a simple 'no'. Every resource they'd had went into reversing the prognosis she'd originally received until they finally got an answer they could be happy with.
The procedure had been risky and almost didn't work but when it came to two of the most stubborn women in the galaxy, almost wasn't enough. They overcame, as always and now they were enjoying their reward. Their daughter. Their perfect thing.
"She needs a name, you know." Miranda's voice shook her from her slight daze, though it sounded far off and dreamy as her attention was focused on the slowly drifting baby in her arms.
Dianna nodded a bit, tucking her lower lip between her teeth for a moment. "Can't we just go with babygirl? It would make this so much easier." Her words drifted into a soft chuckle at the look she managed to pull from the woman beside her before she slipped back into thought for a moment. She wracked her brain, knowing that the list they'd made was somewhere in there but as she looked at the little girl, none of them worked.
They were all names that stood for something, that meant something. She didn't want that, she wanted the dark haired child to make her own path; whether she moved with the swift calculation of Miranda or blazed a trail like Dianna. She would do it on her own time.
"Samantha. Or well, Sam. My best friend back home. Last I'd heard of her she'd joined up with the Alliance right before…" Dianna paused, she couldn't finish that sentence. She knew how it ended. Sam had joined up right before the Reaper invasion which, as luck would have it; would've landed her in the front lines. The near fifteen years she'd been enlisted the two talked almost every week. It'd been six years since she heard from her old companion. It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened.
Miranda nodded silently, leaning over to press a kiss on the bare skin of the brunette's arm before pulling away. "Samantha it is. Danielle for a middle name?" Tilting her head to the side with a bit of a smile, she kept her eyes on Shepard for another moment before returning her gaze to Sam.
"I like it." The Commander finally answered with a nod of her head.
"Perfect. Now, would you like to hold her?"
Shepard stood still for a breath, eyes widening just slightly. It was a simple question really. Would she like to hold her daughter? Of course she would. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to? If it was such an easy answer, why was she having the hardest time answering? Even a nod would suffice! Maybe moving her arms? Nope. That wouldn't work either.
In that moment she realized she was terrified. The woman who stood face to face with a Reaper was utterly terrified of a seven pound newborn. She gulped, eyes darting from the bundle to the blue eyes staring at her and back a few times.
"Dianna…it's okay. Just sit here and I'll hand her over to you." Miranda had to hold back a chuckle at the sight before her, though she had to admit she found it endearing.
She blinked and nodded, taking her seat back on the bed as she readied herself for the handoff. Guns she could handle. Ones that weren't even meant for human use she could get over. Miniature nuke launchers she could hold with ease, a Turian's neck to execute a sleeper hold was no issue but this? She'd never been more careful with something in her life. One hand supported the head while her other arm came around the newborns body and held her close.
Looking down at the still fighting off sleep baby, Dianna smiled. "She's perfect." Her voice came out in nothing more than a whisper; words not really intended to be said out loud but were expressed none the less. This wasn't so bad, it was definitively a feeling she could get used to. The peacefulness, the tranquility, the-
A shrill cry shook her from her thoughts as her eyes widened to the size of saucers as she looked down. "Shit. What'd I do? Did I break her? Miranda..." Looking over with sheer panic she would've growled if her heart would slow down for even a second.
Miranda was laughing hard beside her. She shook her head a few times, extending her arms out to take Samantha back. "You haven't done anything. She's probably just hungry. Please take a breath. You look like you're about to pass out."
"I feel like it." Dianna mumbled miserably, taking a seat just off to the side of the bed with a huff. She sunk into the cushion with a shake of her head as she turned her attention to Miranda and Sam once more.
"You just gave the Commander Shepard the biggest scare of her life, my darling. Congratulations." The dark haired woman cooed as she went about feeding her daughter carefully.
Shepard could only grin, her gaze focused on the woman in front of her and the girl in her arms. Her girls. It may have been hell getting to where they were and knowing her track record, things wouldn't be smooth sailing from here but that didn't matter right now. None of the bad mattered, though it may loom in the distance as an inevitable; she wasn't worried about it in this moment. For the first time she wasn't worried about the bad, the tough, the undesirable. All the cared about was what was in this room in this moment and really? She was completely alright with it.